Siege
by SOTS
Summary: X2 fanfic. In progress, will upload chapters as I complete them. Based on X2, but alternate events. Interested to see what people think of it. Reviews please! Universe and canon copyright of EGOSOFT, not me. Rating for language and violence. --ON HIATUS--
1. Prologue

Captain Milton Tyrell made final checks with his fleet through his neural net. He stood before the captain's chair on his Argon Titan's bridge, his feet looped through grab holds to stop him floating from the deck in freefall. A man who had made astonishing progress in the Universe, both militarily, economically and both. He had the look of the successful businessman-cum-admiral: tall, straightbacked, approaching middle age. His black hair was only beginning to recede, and was edged with silver. Chiselled features and a cold, calculating glare completed the visage.

He was also a vain man, a side-effect of his success. So after pirates attacked one of his convoys for the third time in a wozura, he suffered one of his common bouts of ego, and decided to wipe such a disgusting affront from the face of this particular galaxy. He landed at his nearest holding, a solar plant two sectors away, and called for just above half of his capital ships, three quarters of his corvettes, and a quarter of his fighter fleet to him at best possible speed. The rest, he let guard his merchant vessels and stations. All his ships were of Argon design and manufacture, another vanity that let everyone know exactly where he came from and how patriotic he was. He thought it rather romantic.

His ships arrived over the next tazura. Three Titans, the _Malevolent _(his flagship), the _Myrmidon_ and the _Minerva_; two Collossuses, the _Indefatiguable_ and the _Implacable_; around 30 Centaurs, which he divided into two squadrons, their commanders being aboard the _Havoc_ and _Halcyon_; and 250 fighters, with a mix of mostly M3s and '4s, along with a few M5s to provide interdiction and interception. He ordered that 100 fighters should land on the Indefatiguable and Implacable each, leaving fifty in space. All his combat ships were armed and shielded to the teeth, and were as fast as he could push his shipwrights to make them. He had the best crews he could find, and it showed: his maintenance costs were among the lowest in the known Universe.

He formed his fleet around the two carriers, with the _Malevolent_ in front. The other two destroyers took up positions either side of the carriers, and the M6s formed a rough flat diamond at the back, ready to wade into the fray one they were at the pirates' asteroid base. The 50 fighters still in vacuum spread out in between the larger ships.

"All ships, engage jumpdrives. Target gate: Hatikvah's Faith, North gate," Tyrell said over the fleetwide comm. He had a politician's voice, one that inspired confidence and trust. One of the reasons he had made it this far.

It wasn't a long jump. All the ships arrived in front of the gate in almost exactly the same formation they had jumped in. They turned as one, linked by various scrambled and encrypted channels, and accelerated towards the base.

"Charge cannons, load missiles into the racks and power up shields. All sensors, spherical sweep. Anything with an engine, I want it tagged and IFF'd," Tyrell commanded. A ragged chorus of "Aye, aye"'s sounded through the bridge. He saw the rest of the fleet doing the same through his neural net.

As he usually did when about to enter a confrontation, Tyrell opened communications with the station before he attacked it. "This is the Admiral of the Fleet, pirate asteroid. We have a debt to settle."

A dishevelled and scarred head appeared over the holo-projector in the middle of the command deck. "Waddya want? I gots plentya debts, but I don't turn up with some masai armada to get 'em."

"You've been attacking my merchant fleet incessantly in the sector. I'm here to make sure you stop."

The head looked away, checking something behind the focus of the display. "Ah. Milton Tyrell. Quite the interstellar mogul, aren't we, eh?"

"Tyrell, please." He routinely cursed his parents for giving him such a ridiculous usename.

"Whatever. So. D'you want yer money back, or the goods maybe? Failin' that, we're always up for a fight." Even one lopsided as this? Tyrell wondered, mystified.

"I want to kill you all. You have offended me greatly. Me! Your better in every way. And you use the most underhanded, conniving -"

"We _are_ pirates, Tyrell, you idiot."

Tyrell sat back in his chair, taking a deep sigh. "All ships, open fire. Reduce that rock to molten slag in the next mizura, and I'll double this week's wages." The holographic head blanched, then disappeared.

The pirates managed to launch a few fighters, but they didn't get nearly far enough away from the station to avoid the deluge of photons, plasma and warheads. There wasn't even a debris field from them. The asteroid started to rotate faster and faster, as the impulse from the leaking atmosphere took its hold. Tyrell smiled, satisfied. There really isn't any kill like overkill.

If he was hoping for a drink before getting underway and sending the fleet back to wherever the ships had been before he called them, he was disappopinted. His sensors officer called his attention. "Sir, new contacts bearing one-eight-zero mark plus four-five."

Above and behind. Typical pirate attack manouever. He was just about to ask which clan it was this time when the officer hailed him again. "It's not pirates, sir. Only three contacts, and they're big. Wha- sir, they just.. broke." By this time, Tyrell had floated over to the sensor station.

"Did anyone fire?"

"No, sir. They- now the pieces are moving under their own power, sir. Definite exhaust trail. Getting visual." Pictures of pyramid- and crystall-analogues filled the display. "Have you ever seen something like that before?" the sensor operative - Rourke, Tyrell noted - breathed, all pretence at military formality and decorum lost.

"Comms!" Tyrell barked. "Sound general quarters! Bring every single ship we have back up to combat readiness! Have the carriers launch all fighters, scatter pattern."

"Aye, sir."

"Rourke, get as much information as you can. Record every sezura, this needs to go to the Argon Parliament and Military Command."

"Already on it, sir."

The ships opened fire on the nearest targets: the Centaurs. They replied in kind, bolts of green plasma screaming across the void, but corvette after corvette flashed out of existence. For every one enemy destroyed, three of the fleet would pay for it. They were using some kind of beam weapon, which Tyrell had only seen on defense towers. But these were different. Purple, for a start. The fighters flew interference, diverting the enemy if ever it got close to the capital ships, allowing them to keep their laser and particle cannons trained. Space became an energistic maelstrom full of blinding bolts of plasma, burning atmospheres, drive exhaust, metallic debris, bodies and scintillating purple beams.

The _Indefatiguable_ became the target of a determined attack. Engines fell first, then weapon capacitors. The pent up energy suddenly released burned through crossbraces, bulkheads, composite alloy pressure doors and personnel, and tore the ship apart, flinging thousand-tonne chunks of ship in all directions. The _Myrmidon_ was struck by one such fragment, and carreened away, on fire. Innumerable physical impacts shuddered the superstructure of the _Malevolent_. One of the wide windows on the port side of the bridge cracked. A purple beam scored a line across the shields on the dorsal hull in front of the command module, making them flash silver. A spar from the deckhead fell under the stress of evasive manoeuvers and struck the deck next to Tyrell's chair. Sparks flew from the operations station.

"Shields down to thirty percent, sir!"

"Get us to the nearest gate! Best speed!"

"Engines answering full, aye."

They never got there. Suddenly as the battle started, it finished. Space was quiet again. The strange ships with the purple beams linked together, and disappeared. No communication was ever sent from any member of the fleet.


	2. Chapter 1

"What do you mean, they didn't communicate?" Quinn Duvall, captain of the _Myrmidon_, asked his sensor and communication officers in the situation room, just off the bridge.

"Exactly that, sir," replied Dexter, the communications specialist. "We heard no transmission issued between any of the enemy vessels at all. Unless they were using ultra-tight beam transferral, or some other method unknown to us, they weren't talking to each other."

"But those manoeuvers..." Duvall could quite plainly see in his mind's eye how tight the enemy formations had been, rotating and gyrating, sweeping and looping, coming within metres of each other, yet not a single collision occurred. "Not even computer confirmations?"

"No, sir."

"Did you record what we saw?"

His sensors officer, Clarke, answered the question. "Yes, sir. But it's not of much use to us. We're not going anywhere in our current state, and all that radiation, plasma and various other... hazards rendered our comms dishes inoperable approximately thirty sezuras into the exchange."

"Return to your duties. Get the communications operational again, that way if we can't get moving under our own power we can at least organise a tow. And see if any other ships survived."

"Aye, sir."

The command deck showed all the scars of the battle just as clearly as the rest of the ship: shorn cable trunks, fallen chairs, buckled alloys, dysfunctional gravidar display, and one of the consoles had come clean off the bulkhead to smash into a pressure door on the other side of the bridge, bowing it inward and locking it shut. It had barely missed Duvall, tearing a strip from the front of his jumpsuit.

The rest of the ship had come off rather worse. Small craters, plasma blisters and linear ditches in the hull caused by the alien weapons pocked the hull. The chunk of the _Indefatiguable_ that hit the _Myrmidon_ landed just aft of amidships, severing plasma conduits from the engines, reducing access to the stern of the ship to a single maintenance corridor, and removing the starboard dorsal engine pod completely. A third of the crew had been killed: the energy beams, the _Indefatiguable_ (plus plasma burns caused by the ruptured pipes) and explosive decompression claimed most of the mortalities. Yet more died from bloodloss or internal injuries. The Titan, once a proud ship the match of any in the Universe, was in a sorry state indeed.

"Get Ducheval up here," the captain ordered. As even internal communications were down, a runner had to be sent.

It took a few mizuras for the engineer to arrive, breathing heavily and bruised. "What can I do for you, Captain?"

"How long will it take for the engines to be repaired?"

"Ah. I thought you might ask that. It ain't looking hopeful, sir. Even if we do get the pipelines repaired, we lost most of our fuel before they could be sealed again. And now that the thrust would be unbalanced if we managed to get the engine pods operational again, we'd spend a prodigious amount of our cold gas reserves using the thrusters to keep the ship going in a straight line. If I can get all that done, it'll still take about a wozura." Ducheval ran a hand through his thinning hair, then wiped his brow clean of the sweat collecting there.

"A wozura...? Ops, how long will our life support last in our current state?"

"Four, five tazuras maybe. Not a wozura, at any rate. We're operating at twenty percent past capacity as it is."

Duvall's cheeks were gaunt, his face drawn. It seemed a lifetime had passed since he signed on for his shift this morning. And the battle, short as it had been, had taken more out of him than he liked to think about.

* * *

The Director sat in his comfortable Argnuhide chair, looking out over Argonia City on Argon Prime. His office, as ever, was in shadow. Rumours around the establishment had produced such gems as that he was really a Paranid in disguise, spying on the Department. Or perhaps just a really ugly Argon. Or maybe he was allergic to light, and routinely creeps out at night to eat children. But it was true that he had owned his office for nigh on seventy jazuras, and he showed no sign of his age, or even slowing down.

It was the Department's job to investigate and record every sighting of Xenon ships, or otherwise unidentified alien phenomena. So when even the transponder signal from the flagship of the famous trillionaire Milton Tyrell's fleet had disappeared entirely, without a trace, along with a sizeable portion of the rest of his military arm, alarms blared in the Department. Transponders were supposedly completely failsafe: a simple pulsing beacon that was primarily of use in rescue operations. They required almost no power to operate, and the simplicity of the signal made distortion easy to filter out.

One of the lieutenants working in the Department entered the Director's office. "We've pieced together what we know. Not much, in short. But it's a start."

The Director said nothing. The effect his face being invisible had on his deputies was also infamous in the Department. The lieutenant shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat. "Apparently, Tyrell was attacked. Before disappearing, that is. He suffers from acute egomania, according to all reports, and this time was no different. He was mightily offended, and-"

"Get to the point."

"He jumped into Hatikvah's Faith, where he was attacked before he assembled his fleet, and travelled to a relatively remote pirate asteroid base. Well outside the gate grid, practically in the system's Oort cloud. As far as we can make out, the base was destroyed without a single loss on Tyrell's side. About a mizura or two after that, his transponder signal stopped. We haven't been able to raise any other member of the fleet since either."

"What are you doing about it?" The Director's voice was rarely used, and it showed. It was slightly raspy, low, and there were odd gaps and emphases on syllables where there shouldn't have been.

"We are forming plans to assemble a scouting fleet to go out there and have a look, to see if there is anything left at all. Or, to scan whatever anomaly struck the fleet after the base was destroyed. Basically, to find out more."

"No."

"Director?"

"No. See if any other ships in the sector and its neighbours disappear in similar circumstances. If nothing happens for a while, we can reasonably assume the threat has moved on or the event is over."

This was unusually verbose for the Director, which only served to further unnerve the lieutenant.

"How long should we wait?"

"One wozura. Then send your fleet."


	3. Chapter 2

The Teladi trader had taken a batch of Soja beans (in his superior cargobay) from Paranid Prime to one of the Paranid's outer colonies, Friar's Retreat. Always eager to expand his contact base, and especially gloat in front of the Paranid, he had offered to take the combined food-and-watersource to one of their holdings, even if it was half the Universe away. They had paid him an above average commission, too. He had made the run in a shorter time than he expected, so spent a few days resting as best he could in the cramped, hot Paranid station guest quarters.

He had fired his main engines rather sooner than he should have on his way out of the station.

He was now carrying a half-load of energy cells to a Boron territory. Shores of Infinity. The Boron always needed energy for some research project or another. Waste of money, really. Why not just buy it from someone else? Sure, expensive in the short run, but you save billions of credits and whole jazuras in R&D.

The trader had taken the quickest route he knew. Unfortunately, it required flying through three consecutive Pirate-held systems. So far he had avoided detection, launching the odd combat drone as a decoy, astrogating through thick asteroid fields. He was now coming up on the North gate from LooManckStrat's Legacy, but he still had around twenty mizuras to go.

His gravidar monitor program bleeped. An unclassified mass, travelling on what was unmistakably a Pirate attack vector: above and behind. But if it was a Pirate, it was the biggest Pirate ship he had seen. Then it broke. He didn't even have time to release computer control of the ship and grab the joystick. Sixteen bright purple lances of energy converged on his fusion engine, rupturing the plasma toroid and releasing torrents of stellar-temperature gas into the rest of the ship. The freighter exploded less than a second later.

* * *

There was a soft knock on the door. The Director thumbed the door release and it swung inward. The lieutenant sat down in the single, lonely chair in front of the Director's desk.

"There's been another disappearance. A Teladi trader vessel, this time."

"In one of the neighbouring sectors of the one where Tyrell went missing?"

"No, Director. This one was in LooManckStrat's Legacy. Just dropped off some Soja at a Paranid system, and on his way back up Universal north. But it only showed up in our discriminator programs because the transponder has also failed. A funny kind of interstellar anomaly, if it can erase a fleet, jump seven systems and pluck a single freighter out of space, no?" The lieutenant smiled nervously. The Director said nothing. The lieutenant's smiled faded.

The lieutenant took a deep breath. "Should we send the scout flight now? I know it hasn't been a wozura, but-"

"No. I didn't say that if something happened in similar circumstances, we would launch your mission. What, exactly, do we know about the nature of these disappearances?"

"Well, not a lot, I-"

"We shall finish the wozura, as I said. Then, without fail, your ships will be sent."

"Yes, Director."

* * *

Most of the smoke had cleared from the bridges and accessways of the _Myrmidon_, sucked away by the labouring air scrubbers. But their overall situation hadn't improved much.

"Time," muttered Duvall. "That's what we need. Time. And power. And an atmosphere." He sighed. "One thing at a time."

"Sir," called Clarke, the sensors man. "I have restored our shortrange gravidar resolution. But there's not a lot out there that's of any use to see."

"It'll have to do," replied Duvall. Then he had an idea. Perhaps one that could solve a few of their more pressing problems.

"How far away is that pirate base?"

"Sir?" Clarke asked, then thought better of it. "Scanning. We've drifted closer to it in our time without station-keeping thrusters, sir. Only eight klicks away."

Eight. It would be close, but managable.

"Weapons. Are our grappling harpoons working?" Grappling harpoons were almost never used. They were a contingency: for use if a larger ship had to towed or a station's docking clamps were offline. They were fed by a spool of ten kilometres, giving slack and room to tie any loops, as needed.

"Aye, sir. Mostly. I think we lost a couple in the fight, but all our dorsal, ventral and port hooks are functional."

"Target the pirate 'roid."

"Aye, sir. It's still spinning a little, it may strain the clamps and mountings, sir."

"Compensate. As soon as we have a positive link, reel us in."

The four harpoons on the side of the ship closest to the asteroid fired in a plume of accelerant. They streaked off into the distance.

"Contact. Respooling the cables."

The _Myrmidon_ started to crawl towards the base.

"Sensors. Sweep the asteroid for a neutrino source."

"Aye, sir." A pause. "There's a weak stream, sir. Looks like a fusion reactor or two operating at minimal, just enough to keep them running."

Perfect.

It took another couple of mizuras to get within a kilometre of the base.

"Ops, get a team together. I want them armed to the teeth; rifles, sidearms, concussion grenades and light demolition charges. EVA suits, and our best minimal-gravity combat specialists."

"Aye, sir. Formualting team now. May I ask why, sir?"

"I want to see if they have a power generator we can borrow, along with the atmosphere in their reserve tanks. And any supplies they might have. If the team finds no one left alive, or just a few survivors, then we send in the engineering teams to steal everything we can and linking their reactor to our energy grid."

The Ops officer smiled. "Stealing from pirates?"

"It has a nice ring of irony to it, don't you think?"

"Yes, sir. It does that."

The asteroid was devoid of life. The bodies that the advance team did find were simple hulks of flash-burned flesh, especially the ones nearer the surface. Captain Duvall sent more teams in to remove the reserve tanks and bring them to the Myrmidon, all the medical supplies, and a few spare chemical air scrubbers. The team sent in to link the generators took less than fifteen mizuras to run the cables back between the ship and the base. It now looked as if the Myrmidon was connected to the base via a complex spider's web, complete with insects buzzing between the strands. Little specks of light carrying equipment and supplies from one to the other.

"Comms, any progress yet?" asked Duvall, after reading an inventory of what had been salvaged from the base in his neural net.

"As with sensors, sir. Only shortrange functionality. Our tightbeam transmitters were destroyed in the battle."

"Have you been able to raise any member of the fleet?"

"No, sir."

"Not even one of the M5's? We could use anything with an engine right now."

"No, sir."

"Exo, take command. I need to sleep. And the rest of you. Stick to your normal rotations, if you can."

Duvall looked overwrought and tired again. The elation of the earlier luck with the pirate base was wearing off. Normally a rigorous, energetic man, no one missed the slump of his shoulders and defeated look in his face as he floated from the command deck.


	4. Chapter 3

The lieutenant had been filing a report on a Xenon M5 spotted in the Black Hole Sun sector when he was called to the Director's office.

"Yes, Director?" he asked as he entered the office.

"Get ready. The scouts are about to be sent."

"Ready, Director?"

"Yes. You'll be going with them. Further instructions will be sent when you are underway. Go."

* * *

"Captain Duvall, Ducheval." A small icon appeared in Duvall's neural net interface.

"Yes?"

"We have full engine functionality in the remaining pods, sir. We managed to salvage quite a lot of reactor fuel from the asteroid. Not exactly military grade, but it works."

"Good work. Did you find a solution to the thrust problem?"

"A solution to mirror simplicity itself. We just won't use the ventral port engine. We'll only have half the acceleration we had, but we can fly."

"Even better." He disengaged the comm. "Ops, retract all lines and personnel from the asteroid, and prepare to get underway."

"Aye, sir."

It took another few mizuras to get all the cables back aboard and stowed.

"Helm, best possible speed to the East Gate."

"Engines answering full, aye."

The east gate would take them to the Aladna Hill sector, the nearest Argon system. Duvall wanted to get a communique to the Argon High Command as soon as possible. Better yet, to send a courier. But couriers don't always arrvie at their destination.

They had been travelling for half a quazura now, and were almost exactly in the middle of the system.

"Sir! New contacts, bearing one zero seven mark minus zero two."

"Pirate? Or the others?"

"Neither, sir. They're Argon Discoverers, and they're hailing us."

"Put it up."

A helmeted head appeared above the holo-projector, but it flickered occasionally. They hadn't found any spare parts for it on the pirate 'roid.

"Captain Duvall of the _Myrmidon_?"

"Yes. Who am I addressing?"

"A lieutenant of the Department."

"Which one?"

"Where is the rest of your fleet?" the lieutenant asked, ignoring the question.

Duvall sent the coordinates of the former asteroid base. "Scattered around there somewhere," he replied bitterly.

"Good. You and your crew are under arrest."

Duvall took a few sezuras to take this in. "Repeat that last, please."

"Your ship is hereby siezed under Argon military law, Section 23, Paragraph 2."

As far as Duvall knew, the Sections ended at 22. "What exactly are the charges?"

"You will be told in due time. Your ship will follow us, and one of my pilots is currently manoeuvering to dock. She is to be extended the utmost courtesy, and you are to go with her without complaint, Captain Duvall."

Duvall had no idea what to say as the display snapped back to a fuzzy gravidar representation.

He unstrapped himself from his chair. "Exo, I am transferring command of the _Myrmidon_ to you. You are to do as this lieutenant says, until he releases control."

His executive officer, Trent, simply nodded. "We'll wait in whatever system they take you to, sir."

Duvall floated from the bridge. He pulled himself down the accessways toward the stern of the ship, heading for the docking bay. The crew he met on the way saluted him as he passed them. They knew what had been said between the two ships. In the antechamber before entering the docking bay, he was approached by a midshipman.

"Sir, I've heard of this Section 23 stuff. Just rumours, mind."

"What have you heard?"

"Think, 'carte blanche' and you're not far off, sir."

Well, that explains how an M5 has the audacity to arrest an entire, if crippled, destroyer. "Ah. Thank you, crewman."

She nodded and returned to her station.

Having clambered into his pressure suit in the airlock, he met the pilot outside the cockpit of her craft.

"Captain. Castro." She extended a hand. Duvall shook it. "It's going to be a little cramped in here with the two of us. The lieutenant issued orders that you were not to be placed in the cargo bay, as it's been extended. I hear subspace compression gives a nasty headache, along with various other maladies. After you."

He managed to climb behind the pilot's seat, and helped Castro into the M5 once he turned round.

"So. Where are we going today?"

"Argon Prime. Get comfy, it's a long trip."

This was nigh impossible. He didn't have the room to sit or even crouch, so he had to stand with his head awkwardly bowed so he didn't headbutt the deckhead.

After launching, Duvall got a naked-eye look at the state of his ship. She looked even worse than the damage reports had made out. Blackened hull panels, dents, holes, and a multitude of other hurts greeted the captain as he regarded his vessel. "At least she moves. Got some life in her yet," he whispered to himself.

Castro plotted a course for the north gate.

"We're not going straight there?"

"Would you want to be stuck escorting a limping Titan through five Pirate systems?"

"Oh, OK."

Instead, the route was altogether more circuitous. They were to go north through first Split, then Teladi space, turn west through Boron space and carry on to the corner of the Universe, then re-enter Argon space at Three Worlds. "You weren't joking when you said it was a long trip were you?"

"No," Castro replied. "That would require a sense of humour."

So most of the trip was conducted in silence, apart from the obligatory checking in with the lieutenant.

Until they reached Ceo's Buckzoid, on the border between Boron and Teladi space, when Duvall could stand it no more.

"So... which system are you from?"

"The Wall."

There was a pause while Duvall waited for Castro to elaborate. She didn't.

"Right. I don't go there often, business takes me elsewhere," he said, uncomfortable.

"The Military does that, doesn't- oh, feth."

The aliens had arrived.

"What are those?" demanded Castro.

"I take it you haven't seen the _Myrmidon_'s logs yet, then."

"The lieutenant encrypted them as soon as he downloaded them from your computers. Hold on."

Castro opened the throttle, and the gees slammed Duvall into the stern bulkhead of the cockpit before he could grab something. She then banked hard to port, hurling him into the starboard bulkead, where he broke a readout screen.

"It's getting a bit uncomfortable back here," Duvall managed to say, fighting against the gees and what he suspected was a broken rib.

"You were warned to hold on."

Duvall just grunted. He could just make out one of the other Discoverers firing at an alien vessel, and get cut in half by their purple beams. The drive section span in lazy circles, as the computer override had been fried by the plasma. Why wasn't the Myrmidon firing?

Still, the aliens were ignoring the big vessel, at least for now. Another M5 flashed out of existence. Quinn could have sworn he saw a leg fly past as Castro overshot the wreckage.

The lieutenant's voice filled the compartment. "Castro, disengage. Best possible speed to west gate. Repeat, disengage!"

"What about my ship?" Duvall asked.

"We'll be back for it," replied Castro. "There is no chance we're leaving it behind. Someone high up wants it, for whatever reason. I think only the lieutenant knows. Now shut up, unless you want to end up like them."

'Them' being the dead pilots. Duvall took a moment to try and figure out how many people had been killed by the aliens, in his fleet. Thirty corvettes, sixty crew each. Two hundred and fifty fighters, total crew around 400. The two carriers, with compliments of fifteen hundred. And two destroyers, crews of one thousand, plus around three hundred from his own ship.

Seven thousand, five hundred men and women.

And here was Castro worrying about three fighter pilots. He felt a flash of sudden, irrational anger towards the woman. But then, she didn't know any of the fleet. She only knew these fliers. Friends probably. He calmed down.

The gees pressed him against the rear wall again as Castro accelerated towards the gate. A purple beam slashed past, missing by a metre or two. She banked upward, then corkscrewed clockwise and down until she was pointing at the gate again.

She really could fly, Duvall had to hand her that. Even if every turn she made seemed to hurt him in some new place he never knew existed before. The lieutenant also, when Duvall caught glimpses of his ship through the canopy, was managing to hold his own.

Finally, after three more near-misses and one glancing hit to the starboard weapon gantry, they reached the gate.

"Aren't you supposed to be slowing down now?"

"I've flown into a gate at this speed before. Not quite the same situation, though."

They shot into the centre of the glowing disk, and disappeared. The lieutenant followed two sezuras later.


	5. Chapter 4

The _Myrmidon_ continued its course westward. The executive officer, Trent, wanted to catch up with the captain. The aliens had completely ignored the destroyer, but they had destroyed all but two of the scoutships escorting her. Duvall was on one of them, he knew. The other, he assumed, belonged to that arrogant lieutenant. After they had disappeared through the gate, the aliens jumped outsystem. He didn't bother ordering Clarke, the sensor officer, to try and track their exit vector. He didn't want to know.

"Are we close enough to the gate to request a message drone be sent?" Trent asked. His helmsman answered.

"No, sir. Gate is twelve kilometres forward."

"Dexter. Have you managed to make any progress with the tightbeam arrays?"

"No, sir. Fixing them requires something left to fix. All I found was a lump of melted slag where the arrays used to be."

Trent sighed. "Carry on."

* * *

The Director had already been informed of the reappearance of the alien vessels, and of the destruction of several ships of the scout flight.

He had also heard about several more disappearances of traders and warships, seemingly scattered randomly all over the Universe.

This was happening too fast.

It was becoming difficult for him to keep up with reading reports, sending memos and keeping covered from the rest of the Argon Intelligence Division. Such is government, he supposed.

A face appeared above his desk's holo-projector. "Director. Communication from the lieutenant."

"Put it through."

The hologram dissolved to static, then resolved into an image of a helmeted head.

"Director. Three ships lost, no apparent survivors. At last sighting, _Myrmidon_ ignored by the aliens. Should I go back for her?"

"No. Bring Captain Quinn Duvall back here for interrogation."

"But-"

"The _Myrmidon_ will want to follow its captain. They will come on their own."

"Yes, Director."

The head disappeared.

* * *

"Take me back there. Now."

Castro sighed. "I've just told you. We can't. Small matter of lots of ships that are very efficient killers. If the _Myrmidon_ survives, it will be brought with you. Besides, you're going to Argon Prime. The lieutenant just gave the order."

"I heard nothing."

"You've heard of neural nets, though, yes?"

Duvall grunted. It went against every grain of his being to leave his ship in such a dangerous situation. He should be there.

It was now impossible to reach something even resembling comfort behind the pilot's seat. His broken rib, along with a multitude of bruises and a gash above his left eye, all screamed at him at the slightest movement. "Fine. How long til we get there?"

"We still have seven systems to traverse."

Duvall grunted again. His impatience would have to wait.

* * *

Muller had been drinking in this bar for ten jazuras. He knew everyone that came here, and he knew exactly what was behind the bar. He'd drunk most of it himself. He'd made few friends though - the constant drink and almost obsessive quest for the next top-up had driven most of them away. Except one. A guy called Parker. They shared every experience they had from before and outside the seedy, weedsmoke-ridden room. Admittedly, that relationship was a little one sided - Muller existed for almost nothing but the alcohol, whereas Parker had a life.

Parker hadn't been in the bar for the past couple of wozuras now. Seemed like everyone was disappearing these days.

The door creaked open.

"Parker!" Muller slurred.

Parker, a tall, thin, balding man looked around for the source of the garbled shout for his attention. He found it and walked over.

"Hello?"

"Doncha reconnise me, pal?" Muller tried in vain to focus on the man.

Parker looked completely nonplussed. "No."

"S'okay, I s'pose. Only known each other frabout seven jazuras now. Probably wouldn't reconnise me meself."

Muller had no warning of the punch that landed square on the side of his head, sending him soaring ten metres through smoggy air to smack sickeningly into the metal wall. Two burly men nearby attempted to pin Parker down, but he threw them off like a wet jacket. After reaching the first one, Parker ripped his left arm off, grabbed it by the wrist and beat his partner round the face with it. Then he stamped on the first man's throat, crushing his trachea and filling his lungs with blood. The second got an elbow to the sternum and dropped, his heart a lump of bloody mush inside his chest. The bar was silent, Parker's audience stunned into quiescence.

He walked out unchallenged, his slight frame disappearing into the smoke and exhaust of the spaceport quarter.

The paramedic crews arrived two mizuras later, along with a sceptical squad of policemen. All three casualties were pronounced dead at the scene.


	6. Chapter 5

"Entering system: Argon Prime," the computer reported in its usual emotionless tone. Rather loud, too. It had been a long time since Duvall had been in a cockpit this small, after all.

He was itching to get back to his ship. "How long will this take?" he asked Castro.

Castro just sighed, exasperated. "That's what, the fifth time you've asked me that? I. Don't. Know."

The scoutship's proximity alarm beeped. Castro cursed. "Oh, you stupid, purple, fething fethers!" she shouted at the returning aliens. But only two of them. Why not a whole cluster?

"Hold on."

Duvall grabbed the back of the pilot's seat, and braced his feet against the floor, just in time for Castro to execute a sharp pull up, flip over and corkscrew towards the crystalline ships, firing the one remaining functional cannon all the way. The ship shuddered slightly as Castro launched a missile.

It accelerated at forty gees towards the vessel, and struck head on. The ship detonated in a haze of blue plasma exhaust and flying purple fragments of hull.

"Fether," Castro muttered. "Break my fething ship and see what I do to you..." Duvall decided not to comment on her sudden explosion of coarse language. She had been relatively polite for most of the voyage.

The last one was attacking the lieutenant. He wasn't close enough to outmanoeuver the alien ship, and so was concentrating on avoiding the beams of purple death. Castro fired again, then launched another missile. Another explosion of blue and purple. "Get the feth out of my nation's space, fether."

"Angry much?" Duvall asked, trying to lighten her mood.

"Yes," she growled in reply. So much for that idea. Quinn decided he really wanted to get off this ship, so he could stand up and then run away from the angry, deadly ace pilot. Then sit down. In a great big comfy chair. And sleep. Maybe.

* * *

"What were they doing here?" the Director mused to himself. To attack a heavily defended home system, even though they could have escaped before any really heavy ships could arrive, was nonetheless sheer stupidity.

There was a soft knock at his door, characteristic of the lieutenant. "Come in."

"Director." He still hadn't changed out of his flight uniform. "Reporting to base of operations. Primary mission goal accomplished."

"Sit down." The lieutenant sat in his lonely chair. "You are going back."

"Director?"

"To get the _Myrmidon_. Replenish your wing, and send Castro on leave for a couple of tazuras."

"Yes, Director." He stood again, and left.

It was no good. The Director still couldn't understand what those ships thought they were doing. Maybe a vendetta. It didn't really matter. He would find out soon enough.

* * *

There was an upmarket, successful and popular cocktail lounge in the merchants' quarter in Argonia City. Minimalist decor, comfortable chairs, cosy atmosphere. Low dividers partitioned the large room, without being obtrusive. You could get any drink from the known Universe here, and you could try them in any combination you wanted. Dissolving powdered spaceweed in it was extra. It was rumoured that the President himself came here to relax - after hours, of course. Tonight was a busy night, as a famous touring Teladi Blues band was visiting and giving a short concert via the room's media facilities. The shops and offices outside were also open, in full swing as dusk drew near.

No one noticed a thin, balding man enter through a side door.

He sauntered up to the bar, and ordered a straight Argon Whiskey.

A trader approached him, a broad shouldered, but quite short, man. "Haven't seen you here before," he said brightly.

"Quite true," the tall man answered. He made no other sign of interest in conversation.

"What's your name, son?"

"Parker. Don't call me son."

"No problem, pal. Go for a seat?"

Parker just nodded. He was led to a recessed booth, were the hubbub of general conversation died down somewhat, even if it was near the main entrance.

"I've just come down from the spaceport quarter, myself," the trader said. "Been carrying engines and stuff for the groundbased shipyards here."

"OK."

"What brings you here?"

"People," Parker answered shortly.

The trader shifted, uncomfortable. He was beginning to get a sense of foreboding, and an almost subliminal impression that this Parker person was not the kind of person to be around. "Anything in particular about them...?"

"No. I just watch them, see what they do."

"Oh."

The silence stretched on. And on. The trader pointedly checked his watch, rather than simply request his neural net to show him.

"Ye gods, is that the time?" exclaimed the trader. "I'd best be off. I, uh.. have an appointment. Can't miss it. You know how it is. Bye!"

By the time the trader had turned around to get his coat, Parker was already between him and the door. "I'm sorry, but I can't let you leave."

The word 'leave' was so short it almost sounded like 'live.'

"What are you-"

Parker kicked out with a straight leg, catching the trader full in the abdomen. He marked a parabola through the room, making those who saw him stop drinking or talking, exclaim in surprise or dive out of the way. There was an alley of clear space between Parker and where the trader landed in a broken heap. All eyes turned to Parker.

"Hey, guy, what the feth are you doing? How did you do that?" one man asked. Parker just looked at him, and he swallowed, nervous. The bouncer, a giant by all standards, had edged closer to Parker in the silence, approaching from the left. He was almost within arm's reach...

...When Parker's hand clamped down on his wrist, pulverising the bone. The bouncer cried out in pain. Parker kicked him in the side of the knee, buckling his leg. Then he held all the fingers of his right hand straight and rigid, and drove them like an organic shovel into the bouncer's ribcage. The lung was punctured, and the man-mountain crumpled to the floor, groaning and coughing blood.

Then the screams started. A stampede ensued as all the patrons attempted to take the route of least resistance to the nearest exit that wasn't the main door. Parker calmly opened the door behind him and stepped through, disappearing into the puzzled crowds and gaudy shops.

* * *

"We got 'im this time, Cap," the young police sergeant said, smiling. Cova had only been in the force for a couple of jazuras, but was showing potential. He was sitting in front of a computer screen, looking at a surveillance vid from what looked to be a bar. "Got some great mugshots, the guy even stood still for about a mizura for us."

"Record it and compare his face to the citizen database. I want a name," the police chief said. A rounding man, he had held his position for about a decade. A good officer, if not exceptional.

"Already on it, Cap."

The sergeant was both typing commands into the physical interface and sending orders via his neural net to both orchestrate a search and forecast his movements, based on where he had been seen so far. The bar in the spaceport quarter had no cameras within or without, but there were cameras on the route he had taken through the district. He had first visited a warehouse on the border between the spaceport and merchants' quarters. He had not exited for a few quazuras. Another couple of officers were attempting to pin down what was in the warehouse and why the man had gone there at all.

He had then come out near dusk, the busiest time of day for the merchants' quarter, and gone straight to the cocktail lounge. He showed no sign of not knowing exactly where he was going, despite there being no record of him frequenting that particular bar before.

The interface beeped. "Hey, Cap, the guy's name is Heironymus Parker. Some name. Owns an old Buster, hasn't had it overhauled for the last fifteen jazuras. But he's certainly well travelled: he's been halfway across the Universe."

"So why would he wreck two joints like that? What could he gain?"

"Well, Cap, who knows?"

"Not the answer I was looking for. Any ideas as to where he's going next?"

"There's another bar on his current route... He's heading back to the spaceport."

"Get a squad down there. Armed and armoured. I don't know how he pulled that stunt in the cocktail lounge, but I don't want it happening to our boys. Wanna go with them?"

"Okey dokey, Cap."

* * *

The Director pressed a button on his darkened desk. A female face appeared above it. "Director?"

"Any word from the lieutenant or the Myrmidon?"

"No, Director."

He snapped off the comm to the room outside his office. He sighed, then stood. He told his office computer to play a message telling all visitors and callers to 'go away,' and walked behind his large Argnuhide chair. He pressed his hand against the wall, and a blue line slightly wider than his handspan appeared, scrolling down the wall to read his palmprint. A door swung outward, into an inky black darkness. The Director stepped through.

The door swung shut, sealing with the softest of hisses, until no seam could be found between the door and the wall.


	7. Chapter 6

The two men were standing in the darkened overhang of a door. They were both cloaked in shadow, talking heatedly, and in no language that a passing Argon could understand. Or any other race, for that matter.

"You shouldn't be making so much noise. The people are noticing. They get agitated. And it's getting increasingly difficult to subvert their investigations into alien sightings, now."

"I got bored with waiting. And I have to admit, it is satisfying to watch their fear override their rational thought processes. There's another place I want to do... Then I'll leave, and start your subvertion campaign somewhere else."

"Another place? Two wasn't enough? You've killed five of them already! Do you have any idea how difficult that is to keep quiet here?"

"Yes. I thought you might be bored, too."

"Just make sure this next establishment is the last. This race seems to have quite an affiliation with something they call 'paperwork.'"

"Affirmative. Should I play with their stations on the way out as well?"

"No more than one. We have a schedule, remember."

* * *

Duvall itched with impatience as the scout flew nimbly into the docking sleeve. Indeed, he had to force himself to wait for Castro to get out of the ship first. When he extricated himself from the craft he intended to go straight to the lander transport's infirmary to get his (albeit minor) injuries seen to, then ask for a hefty sedative.

"Captain," Castro said once he'd freed himself.

Duvall sighed. "Yes?"

"You are to come with me. My orders are to escort you to the brig."

"A TL has a brig?"

"Of course."

Duvall decided that Castro must have taken a course in conversation stopping.

Locked up and seen to by a paramedic (a sedative was never even mentioned, let alone offered), Duvall tried to sleep in the cell's uncomfortable slumber bag. Giving it up as a bad job, he just lay there in the sack, waiting for gravity to take hold again as they descended towards the surface of Argon Prime.

* * *

Parker had already entered the bar by the time the police squad could intercept him. Sergeant Cova halted his officers.

"Now, bear with me guys. I know you don't belive me when I tell you what this guy can do. I've seen the vids myself and I don't quite believe it. But trust me, go in ready for confrontation. As in rifles raised, safeties off kinda confrontation. No, I know this means a lot of paperwork, I know that. Just do it, OK?"

A mumbled chorus of sighs and clicks answered him.

Cova opened the door. A man was picking himself up off the floor, bruised and bleeding. Parker stood over him. He whirled around when he heard the police officers. They all had followed Cova's suggestion and all had their rifles aimed squarely at his chest.

"Step back from that man, Heironymus Parker," Cova addressed him. "You are under arrest for breach of the peace, criminal damages and multiple murder."

Parker started to walk closer to the officers.

"Stop right there, Parker. You won't win."

Parker simply smiled.

"Stop now! Immediately!"

He just kept walking. He was about three or four metres away from the nearest officers.

"Front rank, fire."

Four officers raised their blocky, medium calibre rifles. The chemical-projectile weapons thundered, sending fifty gas-expanding, high-explosive rounds tearing into Parker's chest, arms, neck and jaw. They ripped his flesh apart, leaving a cloud of bloody gore where he had stood a split sezura before. He sailed backwards, landing on a wooden table and crushing his way straight through it.

Cova flinched as a bit of Parker's lung hit him in the face. He wiped it off hurriedly. He took a breath to order a couple of constables to bag as much of the mess as they could.

Then, impossibly, Parker groaned.

The squad looked on in horror as Parker's wounds knitted themselves back together, his body gradually regaining control as muscles were rebuilt.

Then he stood, no sign of his previous incapacitation other than an angry snarl.

"That," he said, "was not very smart."

"Joltsticks!" Cova shouted. "Stun 'im! Put 'im down!"

While the other seven officers dropped their rifles and grabbed at their waist holsters for their truncheons, Cova fumbled for his sidearm. He managed to get it in his hand, but he was nowhere near being able to raise it and aim it at Parker's head before he was face to face with the man. Parker made a sound that was akin to a growl.

Cova pumped the trigger as fast as his finger would allow, adrenaline-strengthened reflexes simply offering a twitch response. Fifteen armour-penetrating shells punched straight through Parker's bowel, and exited the other side. Cova could hear them smashing into the bottles on the shelves behind the bar. Parker grabbed him by the neck, lifted him bodily from the floor by at least fifty centimetres, then flung him aside. He landed under a table in the corner with enough force to blow the breath out of him and crack two ribs.

"Cova!" shouted one of the officers. He flicked the switch on the base of the truncheon, arming it. "Come on, lads. Bastard needs a lesson in manners."

"No..." Cova managed to mumble. Then, louder, even though it hurt, "Get out! Back to the station. We'll come back and get him later. Impound his ship, so he ain't goin' anywhere."

However, there was still the problem of the fact that Parker was between the officers and the door.

He made to step towards Cova, but another officer blocked him. "I'm not-"

Parker slapped him backhanded across the cheek. He twisted in arc, right into one of his colleagues. They both went sprawling. Parker kept walking to Cova.

"Get out! I'll hold 'im here," Cova ordered.

The notion was absurd - Parker had, after all, survived a salvo of gunfire. But they went anyway, to secure the surrounding area and to find his ship, as they were told.

Parker picked Cova up off the floor by his flak vest. Cova gasped at the pain it induced in his damaged chest. Then attempted to kick Parker in the chin. His groin was the first thing to get in the way.

A uniquely male agony surged through Parker, doubling him over. He dropped Cova, who unhooked his joltstick and rammed it point first into the unprotected back of Parker's neck. A couple of thousand volts burst into his spine, leaving him convulsing on the floor.

"Everyone out! Go home, you will be contacted later by the Police. Now! Barman, you will probably be compensated. Come on!"

People huddled in fear on the floor scrambled up and ran for the door. Cova followed them out. "Guys, get your cuffs out. I want three pairs on 'is legs and 'is arms. He should still be in there."

Cova opened the door, leading the constables after him. But Parker was nowhere to be seen. An emergency exit door banged against its hinges on the back wall next to the bar.

"Oh, feth it."

* * *

"Good evening, Captain Quinn Duvall. I hope your journey was a pleasant one?"

The disembodied voice woke Duvall, who found himself sitting on a metal chair in the middle of an empty, white room. It seemed as if every surface was a light panel. Everything glowed. Duvall blinked. "You could say that."

"Excellent. Now, to business. What happened on the tazura of this battle?"

"Which one?"

"Pedantics. The one where your fleet was decimated."

"It wasn't my fleet. And decimated isn't the word. Try erased."

The voice said nothing.

"Fine. We had responded to a general call by Milton Tyrell, our employer. He wanted to sort out some pirates that had attacked him. They were in Hatikvah's Faith, right at the edge of the solar system."

"Then?"

"You have the _Myrmidon_'s logs. Why don't you just check those?"

"The logs were all but destroyed in this battle, Captain. The chips were damaged by what appears to have been physical impact. Sabotage, perhaps?"

"Physical impact? That's ridiculous, they recorders are kept right in the centre of the ship, just in front of the tube connecting the drive and crew sections. Oh."

The _Indefatiguable_. "'Oh,' Captain?"

"When the _Indefatiguable_ was destroyed-"

"By the pirates?" The voice was skepticism personified.

"No, not the pirates. I'll get to that. Anyway, it exploded, and one of the chunks, massing around a quarter of the carrier's total displacement, we estimated, hit us amidships. That would be your physical impact, Big Brother."

"What happened to these pirates?"

"They were killed, to the last man on that asteroid."

"So what destroyed the fleet?"

"I don't know."

"How can you _possibly_ not know?"

"I meant, I don't know what race attacked us. I'd seen nothing of the sort before. Their hulls were purple, they were fast, flew ridiculously reckless manoeuvers, and their weapons were purple beams. Like lasertowers, but smaller. And more lethal."

"Purple, deadly ships? You jest. How would these ships have known to find you at the edge of the solar system? How would they be so effective at 'erasing' an entire fleet? Especially one so well-equipped as Tyrell's."

"What are you implying?"

"Are you sure you had no prior contact with these aliens?"

Duvall was furious. "How dare you accuse me of that! They wiped out my friends! More than three hundred of my crew! More than seven and half thousand people, in that one fight! Feth knows how many other people they've killed."

Tyrell may not have been the nicest of people. But he knew the value of bonds between them. He encouraged his capitol ship captains to regularly meet and socialise. And several relationships had sprung up between his captains, over the jazuras. "Do you know who the captain of the _Minerva_ was? Do you?"

"According to the ship's registry, a certain Marie Dayus."

"Marie Dayus. Did you know that we were seeing each other? That we had plans to marry? To settle down on an agricultural world somewhere?"

The voice was frank, and betrayed no sign of guilt. "No."

"So why would I say to these aliens, 'Hey, guys, don't know where I'm going, but why don't you meet me there in a while and start shooting anything that breathes, bubbles or beeps?'"

"We are the ones asking the questions here, Quinn Duvall."

"Ask away."

"What was the size of the fleet?"

"Two carriers, three destroyers, about thirty corvettes, and 250 fighters."

"And approxiamtely how many were in this opposing purple fleet?"

"I don't know, thirty to fifty. Something like that."

"You can see, we have trouble accepting that thirty ships can take on two hundred and eighty five and win. So. Kindly send us your neural net logs, please."

"Where to?"

"Just transmit them, they shall not leave this room."

He did as he was told. The voice asked, "Are you aware that the logs for the time of the battle are missing?"

"Of course they are. I transmitted them into the main recorders afterward, to keep them safer. I didn't know about the damage, we couldn't get to many of the areas at the stern of the ship."

"How convenient."

Duvall sighed. It was going to be a long night.


	8. Chapter 7

* * *

"Commander Trent."

"This sounds suspiciously like our lieutenant friend. Dexter, put him up on the holo-projector."

The lieutenant's helmeted head appeared over the gravidar display. Flickering, as usual.

"I see you have continued our previous course," the lieutenant said.

"Shortest route between a ship and her captain is a straight line, and all that."

"Indeed. Your previous orders are unchanged. You are to go to Argon Prime and await further instruction."

The comm snapped off.

"'Orders.' Bastard thinks he's in charge," muttered Trent.

However, he did stop grouching after only a short while. The realisation that Duvall was probably still in Argon Prime, or even on it, drove him to order the engines be redlined to get there with all possible haste. Trent wanted to go home to his family, and forget all about the trials of the past couple of tazuras.

"Engines answering one hundred and twenty percent, aye."

* * *

Duvall, as it happened, wasn't having a very good time of it. His captors had employed the full repertoir of mean and nasty tricks used by the Argon Intelligence Service to try and get a confession out of him. A confession that wasn't there, but they wanted it nonetheless.

The strategy was one of complete disorientation.

The voice would praise him and carry on to the next question if he gave an exasperated or incorrect answer, and punish him by turning off the lights and pumping excess nitrogen into the cell until he passed out (at which point, they would saturate the room with oxygen to wake him up again) if he gave the required answer. Meals were delivered ten mizuras or ten quazuras apart. He would be allowed ten mizuras of sleep in twenty quazuras of enforced wakefulness, or forced to sleep (or pace around in the dark) for twenty quazuras after only ten mizuras of questioning.

This, coupled with the fact that his cell was windowless and without any kind of contact with the outside world, should have broken him by the end of the second tazura.

Duvall, however, was stubborn as they come.

* * *

Parker had scampered straight back to his ship, barely able to remember how to start it. Why so many switches? He had managed the feat eventually, and was now cradled in a docking sleeve of a lander transport. He was champing at the bit to get away from Argon Prime.

He was the first out of the doors, when they opened. Indeed, in his haste, he almost scraped the panelling from a passing Paranid Demeter.

"Be careful, inferior," the Paranid trader growled. "If that happens again, I may deign to mate with your sister-sibling."

Parker ignored the irate alien as he shot past, and reviewed (after several failed attempts) a map of the sector grid. He picked a station at random.

His ship computer said: "Free Argon Trading Station; selected."

* * *

"Entering Argon Prime, commander," _Myrmidon_'s helmsman reported.

"Thank you. Continue to follow the good lieutenant."

"Aye, sir."

Trent shifted in his chair. He hadn't taken the captain's chair in the centre of the rear deck, because he was determined to get Duvall back. The rest of the bridge crew had noticed this, and they supported his decision. Duvall was a good officer, and often paid bonuses. Sometimes simply because he was feeling generous. They had a feeling that Tyrell may not have been as pleased with him as they were.

"Dexter, hail the lieutenant."

The now-familiar helmeted head appeared over the gravidar display.

"What is it?" he asked, annoyed.

"Where is Duvall being held?"

"You can't get to him."

"Would I really be stupid enough to stage a jailbreak in this ship?"

"Hmm. He's on Argon Prime, being interrogated. He will come to no lasting harm."

The comm snapped off before Trent could ask what he meant by 'lasting.'

"Sir?" the Ops officer asked.

"Yes?"

"Would we be that stupid?"

"Of course we would."

Most of the bridge crew smiled to themselves as they tended their stations.

* * *

"Cap, I'm telling you. We hit 'im with everything we had. He just got up, like nothing had happened."

"Four carbines. One 'cop-killer' pistol. And a joltstick turned to full. Didn't stop him?"

"No, Cap."

"Oh good, for a second there I thought you were pulling my leg."

"Why don't you believe me? I gave you the helmet recordings."

"It's more that I don't want to believe it. What Police chief would? Would you want some unstoppable murderer loose in your jurisdiction?"

"I... No, Cap."

There was a knock on the door to the chief's office, where they were having the meeting.

"Come in," the chief said.

"We got word that Parker booked passage on a lander transport right after we had a barney with him, chief. He's gone."

"Well, that's a relief."

"Cap?" Cova asked.

"I think you might just be young enough to still have your ideals about the police. We can only operate within our jurisdiction - space is kinda out of our league."

"But he killed people!"

"Out of our hands. Go on. Fight crime. Be a hero."

Cova left, exasperated.

* * *

The woman crashed into the bulkhead at the end of the corridor, and kept on running. She was on the lowest level of the trading port, where the curvature of the rotational section was least, but still significant. She heard boots thudding into the deck behind her, and increased her pace. A stitch throbbed painfully in her side. She sobbed with shock and adrenaline.

The thin man chasing her gave a deep chuckle as she dived down a maintenance accessway, weaving left and right around ducts and pipes. He kept pace easily.

"Leave me alone!" she shouted over her shoulder. "You bastard! How did you do those thi-"

Not looking where she was going, she had run straight into a closed pressure door. She rebounded and fell backward, winded. She realised she was closer to the man than she wanted to be, then scrabbled up and placed her back firmly against the reassuringly solid steel.

"You're lucky. That airlock could have been open," Parker said. He wasn't even out of breath.

"Feth off."

"My my, your manners are most unbecoming."

"Feth off."

There was a pause. Then Parker started forward.

"No."


	9. Chapter 8

"And then what happened?" the voice asked.

"You know. I've told you often enough," Duvall replied.

"Good. And these purple ships, what were they doing?"

"Holding a tickertape parade."

"Excellent. Are you thirsty? Need a drink? We can arrange for one."

"Feth off."

This lights went out, and Duvall heard the faint hiss of the ventilation system pumping the nitrogen into his cell. He forced down the panic as he felt himself breathe, but gather no sustenance from his inhalations.

He passed out.

* * *

Cova had clocked off, gone home and called in sick at work. If the desk sergeant was suspicious at seeing him walk out as a picture of health not a quazura ago, he gave no sign over the net.

Cova had taken a shower, poured a stiff drink and flopped on his sofa. He was determined to do something about this Parker person, whoever he was. But he couldn't think of anything to do. He couldn't legally do anything to arrest him, since his jurisdiction lay within the capitol. And Parker had flown away, damn him.

He made a decision that was obvious, but Cova had shied away from due to the inevitable mountain of paperwork it would produce.

He would go after him, legal or not. He would become...

What's the word? he thought to himself.

A vigilante. Policemen becoming the law, and all that.

And so it was that less than a stazura later, Cova was sitting in an acceleration couch in the passenger lounge of a TD, waiting to lift off. It had been a while since he had flown, not since his last proficiency test in fact, but he was sure he would manage it. Like riding a bicycle, they say.

After an uneventful lift off, even after seeing several colleagues from Customs at the spaceport, he boarded his little M4 Buster and flew out of the docking sleeve, concentrating hard. This wasn't so bad after all. He angled upward, and flew out of the main spacelanes by about five kilometres. He cut the engines, and set the comm system to audible output, routing it through the cockpit speakers. The bubble of sitreps and updates filled the cabin, permeated by the hiss and pop of background noise.

He would wait until he heard of, say, a man-made disaster struck a station or ship. Perhaps some unstoppable beast, he joked to himself. He found a BoFu packet under his seat. It had probably been there for jazuras. He ate it anyway. He still couldn't understand how the Boron lived off this stuff.

He waited.

* * *

"Sir, we're picking up a general distress call," Dexter called to Trent.

"Where from?"

"The trading station, sir. They seem a bit confused. Someone got on board, but the local security is completely overwhelmed."

"How many?"

"That's where the confusion starts, sir. One. How could that possibly overwhelm an entire station's worth of security?"

"I have no idea. Helm..." Trent trailed off. Should he disobey the lieutenant, and possibly ruin their chances of catching up with Duvall?

"Sir?" the helmsman asked.

Trent sighed. "Take us to the Trading Dock, please."

"Course plotted, aye."

The lieutenant's helmet appeared over the gravidar.

"Just what exactly do you think you are doing? Argon Prime is in a _slightly_ different direction!"

"Yes, I noticed. Didn't you hear the distress call?"

"Of course. But it is not our problem."

"Well, I'm making it mine. Shouldn't be long." Trent sent an order through his neural net to cut the comm. It certainly felt good to be the one doing the cutting off for a change. He could see ships leaving the station as fast as they could, little flecks of light almost hitting each other in their haste to escape.

"Ops, tell Alkad to get ready. I want him to take the full complement of mercenaries we have. Tell them to take our tenders."

"Aye, sir."

After an incident a dekazura ago, whereby one of Tyrell's ageing Centuries was taken over by a team of pirates posing as insurance inspectors, he made sure everything larger than a TS had its own mercenary crew. There was no problem of loyalty, as few people in the Universe could pay better than Tyrell. Alkad was the commander of Duvall's bunch, and he was nuttier than a Split scruffin farm. There was nothing he loved more than oversized weaponry and loud noises. Even the other mercenaries were wary of him.

The tenders were little more than pods, but they could carry twenty people, at a pinch. They would be perfect.

"Oh, tell them not to go through the main dock. Go for the emergency airlocks."

"Aye, sir."

* * *

Parker had closed to within arm's reach, when he stopped. He cocked his head, as if listening to something, then growled and stepped back.

The woman felt a thud behind her, then heard a hiss as the airlock behind her cycled. She saw the wheel next to her spin, and pushed off from the door before it opened, standing to the side of the corridor. She looked fearfully at this new potential threat.

The airlock was filled with men in bulky combat armour, chemical-projectile ammunition belts, grenades, holsters and webbing. The woman yelped as the one in front grabbed her shirt and pulled her behind him, as he lowered an autocannon that was as long as he was tall and racked the bolt. He levelled it at Parker's chest.

"You'd better not be the one who trashed the security." The man giggled.

"Why not?" Parker asked.

"'Cause of this." The man pulled the trigger, and a two-metre tapering jet of flame shot out of the end, almost as wide as the accessway itself, sending a deluge of 40mm shells screaming at Parker. He disappeared behind the wall of fire, but the man didn't stop shooting. The woman had her hands clamped over her ears from the noise, but she could still hear the man's crazed cackle, even over the roar from the autocannon.

The torrent of noise stopped suddenly as it had begun, accompanied only by the melodious tinkling of spent shells hitting the deck. A jet of steam sprouted from the wall, where a shell had shorn a pipe in two. There were dents and holes in the bulkheads, deckheads and deck. One or two panels had even been completely buckled. Parker was nowhere to be seen, not even a speck of blood on the wall to tell whether or not he had been killed. The man chuckled as he surveyed the damage, turned towards the woman, and held out a hand, the autocannon supported by a strap over his shoulder.

"Good evening, ma'am. The name's Alkad."

* * *

"Sir, the distress call has ended. Cut off mid-syllable, in fact," Dexter called to Trent.

"Thank-"

"Sir," Clarke, the sensors officer, called. "There's a ship on a docking vector with the station. M4."

"Registration?"

"A Sergeant Cova, of the Argon landside police."

"He's a long way from home."

"Yes, sir."

"Hail him," this time, Dexter was addressed.

"I've been trying, sir. No response."

"Clarke, Dexter, continue monitoring the station. Anything leaves, I want to know."

"Aye, sir."

* * *

Cova was nervous. He had heard the distress call, knew it could be no one other than Parker. But the signal had halted as he entered final approach, and even the docking beacon had fallen silent. The external doors were open, providing a limited view of the primary docking hall. It was empty of ships, bar one. Probably belonged to Parker, he mused.

He manoeuvered into a docking sleeve, then exited his ship and pushed off towards the foyer. He waited for the rotation to bring the floor the 'correct' way up, then stepped on. The airlock cycled, then admitted him to the main body of the station.

The lobby was a mess.

Seats were strewn across the floor, displays had shattered, there was even a blood trail on the floor where someone had been dragged to the relative safety of an airlock. Unfortunately, Parker had evidently evacuated the air from the small compartment. Cova could see two bodies in there, along with copious amounts of blood from the explosive decompression of their lungs.

He walked behind the information desk in the middle of the open space, and rebooted a terminal. He punched in his police override code, and accessed the internal sensor suite. He couldn't find Parker anywhere, not even in the maintenance corridors. He did, however, see lots of people in combat armour, and very well armed people in combat armour at that. He would try and avoid them, if possible. One was escorting a civilian woman back to a shuttle, evidently a marooned survivor.

Time for his favourite type of investigation: manhunt.


	10. Chapter 9

There was a knock on the door.

"Come," growled the Director.

"Director. Omicron Lyrae is silent," reported one of the Department's female operatives.

"Silent."

"Yes, Director."

"Silent?"

"Silent."

"OK. I'll ask properly. Explain. Now."

The woman shifted her weight to her other foot, nervous. People who ticked the Director off didn't generally last long in the office. She cleared her throat.

"No signal has been detected from the system, its stations, ships or planet. No message drones, no traffic. Silent."

It was inconceivable. Omicron Lyrae was one of the Argons' major military centres. It supplied three quarters of the Navy's corvette fleet!

The Director was silent himself for a full mizura.

"Dismissed."

The operative barely concealed a sigh of relief, and hurried from the dark office.

The Director leaned his elbows on his large desk, and placed his face in his hands.

It was just too fast.

* * *

"Commander, communication from Alkad. Audio."

"Put it through, Dexter."

"Hey, Trent."

"Alkad. What can I do for you?"

"Well, nothing, right now. A nice whiskey waiting for me when I get back would be nice though..." The mercenary giggled.

"So why are you calling?"

"Oh, just telling you that the teams have swept every compartment apart from the main lobby. Door's locked. So we're gonna crack it, then we'll all come home. Oh, we also found a survivor, some woman. Says she's the manageress of the place. Offered quite a handsome reward, too. Wants to speak to you later. She's on one of the shuttles."

"Thank you."

The link closed.

* * *

"Alkad, that door's of the 'pressure' variety. How are we going to crack it, even with your shiny tube of death? Without ricochet, if you don't mind."

"Well, the boss-lady wouldn't be too impressed if we broke her station now, would she? Just gimme a sec," Alkad replied, grinning. He got an ancient communication relay out of a webbing pocket, at least 70 jazuras old, and flipped it open. He held it to his ear, waiting.

"Hey, Mr. D. How goes it? Oh, hope it looks up for you soon. No, no problems. Well, there's a door that won't respond to the standard overrides, and it's about a metre thick. Got any more of your ubercodes there? Fantasmic, thanks."

His team exchanged glances, while Alkad went over to a keypad and punched in a series of numbers. The door hissed as the hydraulic braces receeded.

* * *

Cova had gone through every monitor in the station, and saw head nor hide of Parker. He was then aware of a presence hovering over his shoulder, and breath on his neck.

"Looking for someone?" Parker asked, apparently curious.

Cova whirled, and had his gun levelled at Parker's forehead in an instant.

"You're the sixth person to point a gun at me today. Well, seven, if you include the time you shot me in the bar."

Parker simply batted Cova's gun hand, and the pistol skittered away. He grabbed his wrist, and pushed on his chest, sending him flying over the information kiosk. Cova landed with a grunt as the impact jarred his ribs.

One of the doors opened, and thunder filled the room and reverberated through Cova, stunning him, as Alkad fired his autocannon at Parker again. The gun clicked empty, and he let the gun swing, barrel steaming, at his side. The kiosk was all but obliterated, and Parker stood unharmed in the middle of the smoking remains.

"Nice to see you again, One With The Enormous Projectile Weapon."

"Name's Alkad. How'd you do?"

His team raised their laser carbines towards Parker, safeties off and power cells humming. Mutterings of 'How come he's still there?' and 'There's no way Al could have missed... not with that many shots!' bubbled in the background.

Parker leapt at Alkad, one knee forward and arms spread wide.

Alkad had already started swinging his autocannon, holding it by the barrel, before the rest of the team could shift their aim. "Get the rest of the teams down here!" Alkad gave a maniacal laugh as the butt of the cannon connected, flinging Parker aside. He landed deftly, and pounced again.

"They're coming fast as they can, but it'll be a couple of mizuras!"

"Fire soon as you get a shot!"

"What if we hit him?"

"You're supposed to!"

"No, I mean Alkad!"

"Just shoot!"

"He's too fast!"

"Over there!"

"He's here!"

Parker kicked out at the nearest mercenary, catching him in the throat and snapping his neck. Laser beams criss-crossed through the air around him, and he jumped away again.

"That bastard!"

"Get him!"

Trained and exercised as the mercenaries were, their shots continually missed, despite all the helpful shouting they were giving to each other. Sparks flew from damaged terminals, power lines and light panels. One wall panel had melted and run down a wall, burning through the polymer covering on the tiles below. Alkad swung his cannon every time Parker came close enough. By this time, Cova had recovered, and added his comparatively meagre firepower to the broiling mass of photons.

A stray laser bolt struck one of the panoramic windows facing into the docking hall. It cracked, a spiderweb growing ever larger.

"Oh, feth," Cova muttered. Unlike the mercenaries, he did not possess a suit that could be pressurised quickly. They all slammed their visors down and sealed the locks as soon as they saw the damage. Cova had left his suit next to the kiosk. It was probably scattered across the lobby now. Thank you, Alkad, Cova thought.

* * *

"Commander, there's a heavy firefight in the lobby of the station. Photonic emmissions off the charts," reported the Ops officer.

"Do we know who they're shooting at? That is, if it's Alkad."

"It is, we're reading his IFF in there. I guess they found whatever got the people there spooked."

"Sir!" called Clarke, the sensors man.

"Yes?"

"Atmospheric leak, in the docking hall! One unshielded human, plus several of the mercenaries. Cova's the unshielded one, I think."

"Oh, marvelous. Do we have any shuttles left to pick them up?"

"No, sir. They're all docked with the station."

"Keep watching. Tell me if anything changes."

"The rest of the mercenaries have arrived, sir."

* * *

"It's about bloody time!" roared Alkad through his helmet mike, grinning.

"Just earning our keep."

The fresh mercenaries opened fire, guns oddly silent in the vacuum. Parker, seemingly untroubled by the lack of atmosphere, leapt through the broken window into the docking hall. He soared across to the far side of the bay, then pushed off from the bulkhead for his ship. Beams of blue light followed him around the cavernous room, as well as the tracers from Alkad's freshly loaded cannon. He reached his ship, opened the airlock and hit the emergency startup for the shield generators just inside the compartment.

Cova was having an altogether more difficult time. As soon as the window had given way, he had exhaled as far as he could, to keep his chest from exploding. He wasted no time diving through the window towards his vessel, trying to reach it before his blood boiled and he died a horrific death.


	11. Chapter 10

"Scout Wing Beta, this is Argon Navy Colossus Mission Control. You are cleared for launch."

"Roger that, Mission Control. Releasing clamps."

Five Argon Discoverers exited the carrier's cavernous bay, and swung round to face the west gate, leading from Treasure Chest to Omicron Lyrae. They assumed a delta formation and accelerated towards the event horizon.

The crew of the Colossus watched the fighters disappear into the distance, then saw the gate flash momentarily brighter as the formation passed through.

"Mission Control, commencing sweep. It may take a while: there's a lot of debris out here. Gravidar's all messed up. Visual isn't worth mentioning. Out."

"Roger that, Beta wing. Keep us informed."

There were a couple of mizuras of silence.

"Beta One, Beta Three. Did you see that, sir?"

"No. What was it?"

"A ship... but I haven't seen one like it before, sir."

"Where?"

"Sending the bearing through now, sir."

"Beta wing, follow me through. Gravidar to maximum range."

Another silence.

An explosion.

"Beta Five! Get the bastard, guys!"

Cannon fire could be heard, then silence.

"Beta One, Mission Control. What is your status?"

A pause.

"Repeat; Beta One, Mission Control. What is your status?"

"Beta Five has been destroyed. Unknown alien vessel."

"Roger that, continue mission."

"Beta Four, you're our resident know-it-all. Any ideas?"

"No, sir. Never seen anything like it. I don't much care for that shade of purple, either."

"Roger. Beta wing, form up and continue sweep."

More silence.

"What the-"

A crash of static came across the com, then a new voice.

"It's huge!"

"Peel off!"

"Returning to-"

More static, then silence.

"Beta wing, Mission Control. Report."

Silence.

"Beta wing, respond."

Silence.

The Commodore aboard the Colossus glanced at the Captain, then nodded.

"Helm," the captain ordered. "Charge the jumpdrive. Take us to Argon Prime."

"Charging jumpdrive, aye."

* * *

Parker impacted the nose of his Buster. Laser bolts washed over the vessel around him. A strike of sparks from one of Alkad's shells flashed silently half a metre from his head. He pulled himself round the flank of his ship until he found the airlock, then opened it and entered. He hit the cycle valve, and waited until the computer let him open the inner door.

"Shields activated; detecting high-energy photon and solid-state impacts," reported the ship's AI.

"Release docking clamps," ordered Parker as he clambered into the cockpit. He started flicking switches, trying to remember that magic combination that got it started again.

"Warning: main engines online. Main engine use in enclosed docking area not recommended."

Parker ignored the computer, and gunned the throttle. He shot towards the exit of the bay, riding a glowing plasma exhaust trail that washed over the whole docking hall, filling it with blue plasma and various pollutants from his melted docking sleeve.

His shields flared where the glowing gas touched it, but shot out of the station before any serious harm could be done.

* * *

"Good morning, Quinn," said the voice conversationally.

Duvall groggily picked himself up from the floor where he'd passed out.

"What time is it?"

"Time you got a watch, my friend. Now. Have you been to Omicron Lyrae recently?"

The question was so out of kilter with the previous lines of interrogation that it caught Duvall off-guard.

"A few mazuras ago, I think, to replace a damaged cannon. Why?"

"Had you had any contact with these aliens before or shortly after that visit?"

"No. Why? What's happened?"

"We've heard nothing from Omicron Lyrae."

"Oh," Duvall replied, relieved. "You had me worried there."

"Quite. That's all for today. Goodnight."

"You said 'good morning' not a mizura ago!"

The lights went out anyway.

* * *

"When you said you had a cargo for me, I didn't realise it would be soldiers."

"Hey, Calvert, you signed up before you asked me what the cargo was. I can't help it that you're desperate."

They were outside one of the airlocks leading to the docking hall of another trading port, in Black Hole Sun.

"And why," Calvert continued, "are they going to Argon Prime? They've got enough divisions, security arms and mercenaries to keep a Universe of angry Split silent for a week. A hundred or so more grunts are less than a drop in an ocean."

"Remind me how much I'm paying you again?"

"Not enough, probably."

"Well, tough. They've already taken a tender across to your TP. Valet codes, so they can't get into the cockpit. Have fun, now."

Calvert stepped into the airlock, suited up, and waited for the chamber to cycle. That done, he pushed off lightly in the direction of his docking sleeve. Once he was inside his ship, he first checked on his passengers in the rear compartment.

They were all sitting down, straightbacked, strapped in. All were still in their helmets and pressure suits.

They were all silent.

Not a single whisper. No joking between old acquaintances, no pranks or even polite conversation.

Calvert pushed himself back out of the room, and floated back to the flight deck, inexplicably shaken.

So what if they were disciplined enough not to get excited?

But then, they weren't even looking at each other.

Calvert checked the internal sensors. No neural net traffic.

Why, oh why did he have to be so eager for a commission? And such a long journey, with Omicron Lyrae off the map.

He sighed and started flicking switches, pressing buttons and strapping himself in. He hummed tunelessly to himself as he got underway.

* * *

Cova was halfway to his ship - he had propelled himself altogether more slowly than Parker, because he was operating on adrenaline and lactic acid alone - when the only other ship in the docking hall fired its engines.

As if I don't have enough to worry about, he thought.

First the lasers and their diabolical propensity to miss him by millimetres, then tracer fire sweeping across his general area, now a nice hot plasma exhaust.

Had he been able to speak, he would have said, "Feth."

The plasma was billowing around the bay at quite a rate, but the hall was massive. Cova reckoned he still had about a mizura before becoming the equivalent of a nice side of pan-seared Argnu.

He continued his agonising drift towards his ship. The docking sleeve containing Parker's ship had all but evaporated, and the ones adjacent to it were sagging under the stress and heat.

He reached the umbra of his ship just as the plasma washed over the shields. His skin felt like it was on fire. The blood leaking out of the pores in his skin, sucked out by the vacuum, blackened and charred in the heat.

Cova reached out for the access panel that would grant him entry to his ship before the vacuum, or the plasma, or both, claimed his life. He punched in the numbers, leaving bloody fingerprints behind. He was immensely grateful the shields hadn't engaged on this side of the vessel, and the door silently opened.

He pulled himself through the threshold, slapped the door controls and ordered the computer to supervise the cycling via his neural net before lapsing into unconsciousness.


	12. Chapter 11

"Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Captain."

"Commander, actually. But call me Trent. And it's really no problem. Anything to delay that bloody lieutenant. Excuse that," he added, by way of apology.

"It's really quite alright. I wanted to discuss my gratitude for your saving of my life. That man was... nasty."

"I'm afraid I forgot to ask your name, Miss..."

"Call me Naeva."

"Naeva? Unusual name."

"It is, isn't it? My parents were on the eccentric side, I think."

They made small talk for a few minutes, then Naeva managed to pull the topic back onto its previous course.

"Anyway, I feel like I owe you rather a lot. I was seriously considering self-destructing the station before Alkad popped the hatch. I suppose I would've got the bastard then, wouldn't I?"

"Yes, I suppose you would have," remarked Trent, ignoring the language from this otherwise charming and graceful lady. "Another drink?"

"Any of that whiskey left?"

"Yes." Trent held up the bottle.

"Pour me a triple."

Trent complied, and handed her the pouch. She downed it.

"Ah. What year is that?"

"752, I think. It came from a distillery in Herron's Nebula, I believe. Their 12-jazura reserve."

"It's good stuff."

Trent smiled. "I believe you were about to sign over your soul in gratitude?"

"Got a pen?" Naeva smiled. "But seriously, perhaps I could just give you the stocks I was about to invest in my station. I doubt I'll be needing them again. That, and my neural address code." She winked.

Trent cleared his throat, slightly pink in the cheeks. "Why wouldn't you be needing the stocks?"

"I'm not going back to that station after what happened. I don't think half of the system would either, thanks to gossip. I'll sign it over on temporary lease to the Navy so they can investigate it or whatever it is that they do, then probably sell it back to the government, go home for a mazura or two."

"And where would home be?"

"An apartment in the capitol. Nothing grand. I spent most of my time at the station anyway."

"Oh."

The conversation seemed to have ground to a halt.

"Well," said Trent after a pause. "I should get going. See how things are. Check if Alkad's back yet. You know."

"Certainly. I'll be here waiting for you, Commander."

Trent left the room, blushing again.

* * *

"This is patrol leader of Paranid Empire Police wing. You shall submit to a cargo scan, inferior."

"Help yourselves," Josh Calvert replied.

"Why," the patrol leader's head appeared in his gravidar display again, "are you carrying tainted armed soldiers through Paranid space? This is a desecration of our sacred laws!"

"What? No, it's a commission. As far as I know, it's perfectly legal. Here-" he transmitted his contract and registration over "- see? Perfectly legit, according to interstellar law. Not even the mighty Paranid can topple that."

The large alien waved its three eyes in varying directions, before settling on Calvert again. "You are lucky, inferior. They carry the second highest security clearance known to either Guild. You shall not be troubled again."

Acting as if this was exactly what he had expected, Josh said, "Well, that's better for you then, isn't it?" before snapping off the comm. His features deepened into a confused frown.

He really didn't like his cargo now.

Sighing, he checked the internal cameras again. The soldiers were still sitting straightbacked, eyes front. Not a single one was looking out of the viewports to have a look at the police ships peeling away on towering jets of plasma exhaust.

He set a course for the west gate to Cardinal's Domain, and hit the 'execute' button.

* * *

"Are you ready to leave now, Commander?"

"Yes, yes, just give me a moment to get the last tender in dock. Two mizuras, tops."

"The Director is waiting," the lieutenant said, as if this cinched it.

Trent simply smiled and closed the comm.

"Helm, prepare to resume course. Follow the lieutenant as soon as all of Alkad's boys get back. Ops, any word on the ones that were blown into the docking hall?"

"No, sir. Presumed dead. The combat armour was never designed to take that kind of punishment."

Trent settled back into his chair. An icon flashed in his neural net display, overlaid on his retinas.

"Naeva," he messaged. "How can I help you?"

"I just wanted an excuse to give you my eddress code. So I called you. Now it's in your logs."

Trent sighed. "Look, I'm really quite busy here. We're about to leave. This will just have to wait 'til later. Sorry," he added as an afterthought.

He commed engineering next. "Ducheval, Trent. How are the engines hanging together?"

"Not too badly, all things considered. There's a slight irregularity in the plasma flow in the fusion toroid, but we'll have that squared away in a mizura, Commander."

"Excellent. Out."

"Sir," called the Ops station. "Alkad and his mercenaries are aboard. Preparing to leave."

"Thank you. Helm, take us out."

"Engines answering cruise, aye."

* * *

A shrill bleeping woke him. Cova gingerly pushed towards the inner airlock door. He looked at his hands - they were blistered and burned from the heat of the plasma. He thanked every deity he could think of that it hadn't actually touched him.

The inside of his jumpsuit seemed damp. The outside was black, just as it had been, and dry. Strangely crisp to the touch. He stuck a finger underneath his cuff and it came away covered in blood. Ah yes. The vacuum exposure. No wonder he felt tired.

The bleeping cut off shortly after he arrived in the cockpit. He sighed in relief - he'd have to reset the volume parameters.

It was replaced instead with the ship's computer reporting, "Structural integrity of station compromised. Centrifuge section collapse imminent. Recommend immediate departure. Awaiting order."

He tried to order the ship to move verbally, but his throat was sore and parched and he could produce no sound that the computer would recognise as an order.

He tried using his neural net instead, and found it was out of comission. The charged plasma probably played havoc with his electronics.

So he was reduced to using manual input, which he still wasn't very confident about. He grasped the control stick and gasped with pain: his skin was evidently more than a little burned. It felt swollen and bruised as well.

He forced himself to carry on flicking switches and readying his ship for flight before the trading dock broke apart around him.

"Docking clamp malfunction."

"Feth," he croaked. He wasn't going out there to fix it, not in his currrent state.

He shunted the chemical reaction control thrusters to maximum burn. Nothing happened, apart from groans and pops thorugh the superstructure from the new stresses on it.

"Docking clamp malfunction," the computer repeated. As far as an emotionless voice could, it almost sounded exasperated, as if to say 'Why weren't you listening the first time?'

He brought the throttles back to the stops. Then flicked another three switches in quick succession, and rammed a larger throttle forward.

"Warning: main engines online. Main engine use in enclosed docking area not recommended."

The docking sleeve and M4 alike screamed in torment, respective frames tested to breaking point. Much as he didn't want to damage the superstructure of the station with even more plasma exhaust, he didn't feel he had a choice.

Cova's Buster tore out of its mountings in the docking sleeve and rocketed forward, as he desperately tried to throttle back again. He was now halfway across the hall from the lock to space. He shut down the main engines again, and reverted to the control thrusters. The fighter managed to claw back a smooth vector, and started to creep towards the exit.

Too slow, Cova thought. The station'll break up before I get out.

A support spar from the arbitrary roof of the docking hall ripped free of the ceiling and swung silently downward to punch a hole in the plating. Broken deckplate spun in lazy circles near the fracture, drifting slowly away.

"Warning: structural integrity of station approaching critical value. Collapse imminent. Egress is imperative."

Cova switched the audible output of the cockpit speakers off, and concentrated on escaping.

* * *

"Sir, the station is breaking apart," reported the sensors man, Clarke. "The plasma exhaust from the assailant's escape destroyed a significant part of the stress structure."

"Helm, flank speed. Get us away from the station."

"Engines answering full, aye."

"Structural integrity has failed, sir," continued Clarke.

The centrifuge from the spinning section of the station flung massive chunks of the ring in all directions, some hundreds of metres long.

"Dexter, do the nearest stations know?"

"I'm recommending they increase their shield output to maximum now, sir."

The centremost section of the station, which included the docks and cargo handling facilities, was simultaneously torn apart and crushed beneath two huge arcs of the ring, which, although they were now drifting away, had collided with the central section due to their rotation.

"Clarke," Trent said quietly, awed by the silent spectacle. "Was there anyone left in there?"

There was a short pause.

"Sergeant Cova, sir."


	13. Chapter 12

The Argon Navy carrier streamed through the gate, and immediately manoeuvred to fly towards the high orbit docking platforms above Argon Prime.

"Helm, make sure we have priority access. I don't want to have to make any changes to course. This is of the utmost importance to the military and government."

"Aye, sir." The helm officer knew this, but he also knew that the captain had a habit of vocalising his thoughts. Helped him organise himself, or something. He just wished the patronising attitude wasn't directed at him so often.

"Captain," called the sensors operator. "Large debris field, to the ecliptic east. Several of the components are moving with a large velocity."

"Sir," this time the comms officer spoke. "Several distress calls. It appears the trading dock has been destroyed."

"Ignore them."

"Aye, sir."

It took another couple of mizuras to achieve orbit, and another three to match orbits with one of the docks given over to military service.

"They're requesting docking clearance, sir," the comms officer called. "They're not accepting our ship's registration, like they did."

"Transmit the following code," the commodore said. He sent a long numeric via his neural net.

"Docking granted, sir."

"Captain, commander, and Ops," the commodore ordered. "You are to come with me planetside for a full debriefing and strategic planning session."

"Strategic, sir?" Asked the captain. "We're going universal with this?"

"Wait for the debriefing, Captain. That is the time for questions."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

Nine thousand kilometres away, above the dawn terminator, the _Myrmidon_ was drawing in to dock with one of the other geostationary mooring rings.

The gravidar display on the bridge warped and reformed into an image of the lieutenant's helmeted head.

"You are to take a tender landside to interview with the Department, Commander. It should not take long. You are to release your passenger also. She is to be returned home."

The comm snapped off before Trent could reply.

"Helm, continue docking. Ops, you have command until I return. Also, see if you can get anything special out of the chef. I'm sure Duvall will be hungry, the sawdust they probably serve in the prisons here."

The Ops man smiled and nodded. "Yes, sir."

Trent pushed off and made his way through the ship to the docking bay, where the tender had already been reeled in and docked. He was on the point of climbing through the hatch when a thought struck him.

"Crewman!" he called. "Bring Naeva down here. She needs to come, too."

"She's already strapped in, sir. Came down by herself a couple of mizuras ago."

Trent frowned. "Thank you, crewman." How had she known how to get down here, unescorted? It was a long way from her quarters.

He clambered in a strapped himself in. Once he was done checking that he wasn't about to float away, he asked Naeva about her journey through the ship.

"Well, it's towards the back and down. So that's the way I went. Common sense, really," she replied with wide-eyed innocence. Trent wasn't convinced, but decided to let it go.

* * *

_"Good evening there, folks. Another excellent trading day for the Stock Exchange, with almost all Argon shares up by around one decimal four percent!  
__  
In other trading-related news, the Free Argon Trading Station in Argon Prime was destroyed in some kind of accident. Exact details are unclear, but rumours have circulated that one man, a terrorist or similar, perhaps, gained entry to the station and attacked everyone on sight. Questions have been raised as to why the security were helpless to intervene. As far as we know, only two or three people were killed in the disaster, and were claimed fairly early on in the proceedings._

Forensic experts are combing the expanding debris field, searching for clues as to the collapse and the station's primary blackbox recorder.

So, Larry, how's the weather in the colonies today?"

"Director."

"Sit down," he rasped in reply.

The lieutenant sat, wringing his hands.

"Why," the Director asked, "did it take you so long to get back?"

"Commander Trent insisted on extending assistance to the trading dock, Director. He was... most adamant."

"You had the power to order him to continue. Why did you not?"

"I -"

"I don't much care anyway," the Director interrupted, a frown on his invisible face.

There was the loudest silence the lieutenant had ever heard. He kept wringing his hands.

"How many of the alien ships did you destroy when you brought back Duvall?"

"Best count, Director, five. I'm not sure how many the other wing members destroyed before they succumbed."

"Hmm."

Another deafening silence.

"You may go."

"Director."

The lieutenant left, barely concealing a hearty sigh of relief.

Calvert was thoroughly glad to leave Paranid space behind. After he was stopped by the Police, the Paranid had all but cleared the spacelanes for him, which only served to further unnerve him. The quicker he got to Argon Prime, home, and ditched his cargo the better.

As was routine now, he checked his internal cameras. All of his passengers were in the exact same position they were at the beginning of the voyage. Calvert's near-permanent frown deepened as he cut the feed.

He would have to have words with that commissioner, if he ever saw him again.

Docile as his cargo seemed, he had the nagging suspicion that they would only spell trouble for him later.

The _Myrmidon_ was now operating with a skeleton crew and minimal watch, standard procedure for a ship at dock.

As it was, a small blinking red light went unnoticed on the comms console.

Next to the light, on the left hand side, were written the words: "_Receiving Distress Call_."

On the right hand side was a small screen, detailing the ship sending the call. The screen wrote: "_shipclass:M4/shipspecies:Buster/shipregistry:172548852-AC/shipowner:Sergeant Cova, Argon Landside Police_."

In other trading-related news, the Free Argon Trading Station in Argon Prime was destroyed in some kind of accident. Exact details are unclear, but rumours have circulated that one man, a terrorist or similar, perhaps, gained entry to the station and attacked everyone on sight. Questions have been raised as to why the security were helpless to intervene. As far as we know, only two or three people were killed in the disaster, and were claimed fairly early on in the proceedings.

Forensic experts are combing the expanding debris field, searching for clues as to the collapse and the station's primary blackbox recorder.

So, Larry, how's the weather in the colonies today?"

* * *

* * *


	14. Chapter 13

Trent and Naeva boarded a taxi after disembarking the lander transport. They made a strange pair as they clambered into the cab - Trent in his one piece navy blue ship's jumpsuit; and Naeva, in her black business skirt cut just above the knee, low-cut white blouse with a high collar and her black, tailored blazer.

Naeva loaded her apartment building's address into the drive array, after she had strapped in. Trent occupied himself with watching the other traffic slide by as he attempted to ignore the appraising looks Naeva was unashamedly giving him.

"So, Commander, do you make a habit of rescuing damsels in distress? Or was I a one-off for you?"

Trent felt himself blush again. He cleared his throat. "Um, damsels in distress?" he asked.

Naeva simply smiled.

"Well, uh, not really. No."

"No to which?"

"What?"

"Rescuing helpless women, or my being a one-off?"

"The first one."

Naeva continued to smile. Trent realised he had been manoeuvered into that answer and looked hurriedly out of a window again.

He was still blushing.

It took another half a quazura to arrive at her apartment building. The taxi landed on a ledge about halfway up the skyscraper, and a side door opened.

"Well, this is my stop," Naeva said. "Won't you see me to the door?"

Trent ordered the taxi to wait via his neural net, and concealed a sigh of relief. The torture was almost over!

He walked her over to the doors into the skyscraper, and she turned towards him.

"Trent," she said. "Thank you."

She leaned in close, tiptoed and kissed his cheek. Then she was gone, disappearing into the building.

Trent was reluctant to touch his face on the way back to the taxi. He feared that if he did, his hands would burn down to the bone, his face was that hot.

* * *

"This may be our last meeting, Quinn. Isn't that a shame?"

Duvall groggily opened his eyes. "Yeah, why not. A shame."

"Just a few questions, then, friend."

Quinn sighed. "Shoot."

"Who is Heironymus Parker?"

"Who?"

"Parker. Causing quite a bit of trouble. Thought you might know him."

"No, I don't. Nor did I arrange the destruction of Tyrell's fleet, or whatever else this guy has done."

"Why do you insist on lying to us, Quinn? Do you lie to all of your friends?"

"You're not my friend. You're a voice in the wall."

"A voice in the wall? Is that all I am to you, Quinn? Or are you just going insane?"

The trouble was, he really didn't know anymore. The lights went out.

* * *

After returning to the taxi, Trent loaded an encrypted file the lieutenant had given him into the drive array. The cab lifted off and drove towards the government quarter, cutting up other traffic and speeding well in excess of the limits. Those were quite some aggressor routines, he thought.

It deposited him outside an average-looking building, ten storeys high, with reinforced alloy doors and mirrored windows. As he walked up to the building, the doors opened silently for him.

He paused, then carried on walking into the building.

A man greeted him in the lobby, an otherwise deserted space.

"Commander Trent, you will follow me."

He recognised the voice as belonging to the lieutenant. He just hadn't seen the arrogant bastard's face before.

"Anything in particular you wanted to know?"

"The Director will ask the questions."

They boarded an elevator, and rode to the eighth floor. Trent was guided through various office spaces and banks of computer terminals. Then, finally, they stopped in front of a polished hardwood door.

"This is the Director's office. You are to answer his questions quickly and concisely. Understood?"

"Of course. I'm no simpleton."

The lieutenant raised an eyebrow, and knocked on the door.

"Come in," called a voice from the other side.

On entry, Trent was struck by how dark it was. He tried not to smirk at the lieutenant's new, simpering attitude. I suppose his arrogance is just him compensating, then, Trent mused. Also, he noticed that, besides himself and the lieutenant, there were two people in the room.

"Ed? Ed, is that you?"

"Quinn! You okay? Jeez, you look a wreck."

In the half light provided by the room's single window, Trent could make out gaunt cheeks, bags under his eyes and slightly shaking hands.

"Yeah, just tired is all. And hungry. I swear they actually made me eat sawdust..."

Someone cleared their throat, behind the desk, where it was in near-complete darkness.

"Duvall, Trent, this is the Director," introduced the lieutenant.

"Lieutenant," he rasped.

The lieutenant visibly flinched. "Yes?"

"Wait outside."

"Director."

He closed the door behind him.

"Gentlemen," the Director continued, "it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Likewise," said Trent. Duvall just grunted.

"Trent. What happened to your fleet?"

"It was destroyed. By aliens. Quite a first contact. Upwards of seven thousand souls lost. Billions in damage."

"So we heard from Duvall."

"Then why am I here?"

"Has Duvall any... shady contacts, that may have had links with these aliens, direct or otherwise?"

"I said, it was probably a first contact."

"Hmm. This is for the good, I suppose. The death toll is already too high. And I don't necessarily mean your fleet. You may go."

Trent and Duvall left, frowns on both their faces.

* * *

Two stazuras later, Trent and Duvall were back aboard the _Myrmidon_. Cheers rose in the docking hall when Duvall gingerly pulled himself out of the tender.

"You're back!"

"How did you get him out, Trent?"

"You owe me a beer, mate! Toldya he'd be back by the end of the wozura!"

"He looks a right state. Is he okay?"

"Wait, a beer? When did we decide that?"

The bay was littered with crates and cases, as supplies were being continually brought in to replace damaged components and bulkheads. Similarly, the scrap was brought down to the bay as well and arranged near the far bulkhead.

The exterior of the ship was receiving a similar treatment. Sections of armour plating and shorn braces had been removed, allowing access to the pressure hull and systems between the pressure and outer hulls. A new engine pod was being brought over from the shipyards, and the others were being overhauled. The reactors were replaced with new marques and shorted-out shield generators were replaced.

Even the bridge had started to be repaired. The cross-brace in the deckhead that had fallen under the strain of combat maneouveres had been replaced, and the console buckling one of the exit doors had been removed, repaired and refitted; and the airlock replaced.

The gravidar display no longer flickered, for which Trent was immensely grateful.

"Well, this all looks very nice," said Duvall. "But I haven't seen the galley yet. And I'm starved. Has chef made anything special today?"

More cheers awaited them when they entered the mess hall. Chef had indeed made something special: a huge cake, and written on it in scarlet icing were the words _Welcome Home, Quinn!_


	15. Chapter 14

Two tazuras later, and the repairs were more or less complete. The new engine pods, and the upgraded originals, had completed an exhaustive shakedown and performed admirably. Even Ducheval, normally deadset against any kind of adjustment to 'his' engines, was impressed.

Almost all of the armour plating had been repaired, apart from a few spots near the bridge. The pressure hull was also restored to its previous condition, and indeed somewhat stronger for the extra braces Duvall had requested.

Trent was still occupied with watching the gravidar display not flicker.

"Trent," Duvall said.

"Hmm?"

"You've been staring at that for the last quazura. You'll give yourself eyestrain."

"No I won't. Not anymore, anyway. Look at it. See that?"

"See what?"

"Exactly."

Duvall sighed. Then, assuming an innocent tone of voice, "So... who was that woman the other tazura?" He supressed a smirk as Trent blushed furiously. "Oh, Ed, my good man, something tells me you are avoiding someone."

"Avoiding someone? Whom? I don't know what you mean. What possible reason could I have for avoiding someone?"

"Oh, nothing," Duvall chuckled.

The Ops officer floated his way over to the captain. "Sir."

"Yes?"

"Almost all the repairs are complete. There are, however, a few weapon systems that could not be sourced here. My section suggests calling in an independant trader rather than one of Tyrell's fleet, it'll be quicker."

"Put a commission out over the BBS nets, then. Put it above the average, too. Ensure a speedy response."

"Aye, sir." The Ops man returned to his station.

The crew was changing watch, now. The main comms officer, Dexter, entered through a side airlock. He noticed a small red blinking light almost immediately.

"Sir! Incoming distress call. It's Cova!"

"Cova?"

"Oh," said Trent. "He was a landside police officer on the trading dock before it fell apart. We thought he was dead."

"And this was two tazuras ago?"

"Yes, sir."

"And no one noticed that we were receiving a distress call, in all that time?"

"I... yes, sir."

"Ye gods, but things have become sloppy while I was gone. Reduced wages for the next two wozuras for both the communication and sensor sections."

"Aye, sir."

"And Trent."

"Sir?"

"Find an M4 somewhere. You're going after him."

"Aye, sir."

* * *

Cova hadn't quite managed to escape the docking hall before the station tore itself apart. Another ceiling brace had swung down and struck his engine exhausts, shearing one off and twisting the other beyond repair, rendering his ship effectively immobile. His main comm dish had also been crushed. All he had now was an underpowered auxiliary system that was never really intended for actual use.

Which he switched to distress call mode.

"Warning:" the computer had said. "Atmospheric leak detected. Recommend immediate repair."

Like that was going to happen. Cova clambered sorely out of the pilot's chair, and grabbed the spare spacesuit from the rack. He clambered into it, wincing every time he stretched his tortured skin, and sealed it. He then turned the life support off, there being little point in it anymore.

He sat and waited for someone to hear his call. He just didn't know it would have taken so long.

* * *

"What do you mean," Trent said, "5000 credits, for one stazura's rental of an M4? It's not even armed!"

"Look, pal, that's as low as I'm going. It's mine, see, and I want it back in good condition."

Trent sighed heavily. "Fine. Here. It'd better be a good ship."

"Of course it's a good ship," the owner said, offended. "I take good care of my possessions. Unlike some people you get docking here," he added pointedly. Trent just raised an eyebrow and turned away to the berth.

True to the owner's word, the ship was in good condition. Clean, recently overhauled, and in perfect working order. Trent powered up the fusion toroid, armed the main engines and steered the ship out of the docking bay using the reaction thrusters. Once outside, he triangulated Cova's position with the _Myrmidon_, and accelerated at full throttle.

He was still in the central, and densest, part of the debris cloud left by the trading dock. The forensic teams had attached small stationkeeping thrusters to the largest parts of the derelict station, to keep them from drifting any further into the spacelanes. Unfortunately, there were too many pieces to do this with the closer one came to the originial position of the station. Trent found himself having to constantly adjust his course to avoid chunks of slag and scrap that could quite easily have flattened his borrowed M4.

His sensor suite bleeped - it had located Cova's vessel.

It was jammed in the lee of two flattish sections of deckplate, the cockpit section jutting out at an odd angle. Trent didn't need a thorough sweep to show him that the fighter wouldn't be flying under its own power again.

"Sergeant Cova, this is Commander Trent of the independent destroyer _Myrmidon_. What is your personal status?"

There was a mizura of silence. Trent repeated his hail. After another silence, he clambered out of his seat and struggled into his EVA suit. Feat managed, he drifted into the airlock and waited for it to cycle.

He manoeuvered his way over to Cova's ship using the cold-gas thruster pack on his back, and peered through the cockpit window. It was frosted over on the inside, so he couldn't see anything. Pulling himself hand over hand aroundthe topside of the hull, he finally saw the airlock hatch. It would open, he decided, but it would be a tight fit getting in the door. The deckplate was only about half a metre from the airlock hatch.

Another few mizuras of struggling with the frozen computers to get the airlock to open was completed successfully with the door juddering open. Trent sealed it behind him and waited for the airlock to cycle. It didn't. He pushed on the inner door, and was surprised to see it open. His suit sensors registered the pressure inside the ship proper hovering just above vacuum. The temperature inside was 168 kelvin - minus 105 Centigrade.

A quick query to the ship's computer revealed that life support had either failed or been shut down.

Trent found Cova hovering in the microgravity in the cockpit, dressed in his own EVA suit.

"Cova," he commed.

A pause. "Cova?"

* * *

"Sir," the Ops officer addressed Duvall. "We've had several replies to our request. The most promising one looks to be a certain..." he consulted a data tablet "Stu Pike. He's already in Argon Prime, as it happens. He's on his way over to discuss exact terms."

"Excellent. When will he be here?"

"Another few mizuras, sir."

"Thank you."

The Ops man nodded and returned to his station.

* * *

_"Good evening there, folks! Another fine evening over the capitol today, and we here are loving it! Temperatures well above the seasonal average, and it is set to continue for the rest of the wozura! Unfortunately, more rains are set to arrive next wozura. _

"A pleasure to meet you," Duvall said. He held out a hand. Stu shook it.

"How do, mate?"

"Please, have a seat. Whiskey?"

"If you're offering, mate. Make it a double."

Duvall profferred the pouch.

"Cheers. So what is it you need me to transport?"

"Two GPPCs, and at least 50 medium-or-above payload missiles, depending on leftover funds. Also, we require three energy resevoir capacitors. Simply charge it all to MTyrell, Inc. We'll handle the rest. We'll pay your commission on completion of the flight."

"What will the commission be?"

"Well, when we said 'double the standard rate' we may have been lying slightly. Twenty thousand credits."

Stu tried to keep a straight face. Twenty thousand credits would set him up comfortably for a jazura. "Is that all?"

"Why, was there something else you wanted?"

"A jumpdrive, mate."

Duvall raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I've gotta go all the way to Paranid space for those GPPCs. And probably the other stuff, too. So I want a jumpdrive. You do want this stuff fairly fast, right? That's what the message said..."

"Yes, yes. You certainly drive a hard bargain. But," Duvall sighed, "I don't have a lot of choice. You can have our spare drive. We'll even let you keep it."

They talked a while longer, haggling some of the finer details, and the odd bit of small talk. Stu rose out of his chair.

"It's been a pleasure doing business with you, mate."

They shook hands again, and Alkad showed Pike back to his ship. Stu started with surprise. The trader looked almost comically small compared to the mercenary.

Duvall chuckled quietly at the sight after the door closed.

* * *

Trent saw that the tanks had run dry on Cova's suit. He was breathing whatever was left in his suit proper, now. A quick scan showed that the internal temperature of his suit was minus 23 Centigrade. Cova was suffering from both oxygen deprivation and hypothermia.

What fun, Trent thought. He hauled Cova back to his ship, and cracked the seals on both suits as soon as the airlock cycled. He dragged Cova into the cockpit, where it was relatively warm, and made him as comfortable as possible. Trent noted that aside from the frost, Cova's skin seemed charred and cracked, probably from some stupid stunt he'd tried to pull back on the station or something.

He screamed across the system, heading back for the planet and the_ Myrmidon_, and the ship's extensive infirmary. He ordered the fighter's relatively basic internal sensors to monitor Cova for any deterioration. He remained unconscious for the entire flight back.

Having docked, he sent an emergency alarm to the paramedic crews on the dock via his neural net, and ordered them to take Cova to the _Myrmidon_. He returned the M4 to its owner, and returned home.

Having reached Duvall's office, he reported what happened. "... and he's back here, now, sir. Should be good to go soon."

"Good, good. Trader's just left, he's going to get us the parts we need. So. S'all coming together now, isn't it?"

Back to our main story. The trading station in Argon Prime is no longer spreading through the system, thanks to the commendable efforts of the forensic and cleanup teams on station. Attempts have been made to get in contact with the station management, but the administrative personnel are currently unavailable for comment.

However, we did manage to track down a witness to the events:"

"It was terrible! The things I saw that man do... He just stepped into the lobby, and killed someone going into the airlock next to him. Right out of the blue! For nothing! Then he jumped clear across the chamber and kicked a woman in the chest. I'll never forget how his footprints were bloody after that.

You know? I wake up every morning thinking he's going to come after the ones that escaped, that he's going to be there watching over me while I sleep, waiting for me to wake up so he can scare the baka feth out of me..."

"Well, there you have it, folks. Right from someone who was there. Who is this mysterious man? And why haven't the Police forces and fleets found him yet?

We also received word that a man of similar description visited several bars in the capitol shortly before the trading dock. More on that later.

So, Larry. Cheerier things for the weather in the colonies yet?"

* * *


	16. Chapter 15

The Argon Navy commodore, captain and commander stood in a seemingly large room, waiting for their superiors to address them. The captain shifted his weight to his other foot, nervous. The commander fought back an urge to scratch the back of his neck. The commodore showed no outward signs of discomfort.

The room was only 'seemingly' large because they could not see most of it. It was always kept dark, presumably for reasons of security and unnerving its occupants, among others.

A single light shone down upon an ebony table, five metres long, that scattered into the eyes and faces of the interviewees in a rainbow blur, making it impossible to see the faces of those behind the desk.

"Gentlemen," a melodius tenor voice intoned. "Thank you for waiting."

The captain thought it unlikely that they cared.

"We have studied the records of your mission, Commodore Tanith. About the logistics and strategy used, we have but one question: Why was but a single scout wing sent into Omicron Lyrae, rather than the two usually required to sweep a system of similar complexity? And a potentially hostile system, at that?"

"They were originally going to be a preliminary scout, sirs. If the immediate area around the gate had proven relatively safe, then scout wings Alpha and Gamma would have followed, to perform a more thorough and swift sweep. However, this was not the case, as you saw."

"Indeed, Commodore. And you are to be commended for your alacrity in returning this information to us. But you did not even send a single vessel to enquire for confirmation of Beta wing's status? To ensure that they had, in fact, been destroyed to a man?"

"No, I did not. Their last communications were frantic, and they were obviously, to my mind, being picked off one by screaming one."

"Nevertheless, until such time as their existence is proven or otherwise, they shall be listed as missing in action."

"This will require an investigation, if we are to list them so," rasped another, deeper, voice. It was almost a growl.

"Then suppress it, Director. That is what you do."

"Captain Kime, Commander Daur. Congratulations on your successful mission," said the first voice.

"Successful? I lost five good pilots. Not to mention the cost of their vessels. And I'm not sure what we found, if anything."

"Oh, now, Captain. You found more than you realise."

The owner of the first voice leaned forward, so that his outline was visible to the three Navy men. His face was still in deepest shadow, but the light gleamed and glinted from the brass rank insignia on his shoulders and the top row of medals on his chest, the gold rope around his right armpit, the red sash. He was, apparently, a colonel in the Argon Marines, the undisputed masters of shipboard combat. His name patch was invisible.

He seemed about to say something more, when he was interrupted. He tilted his head, and listened to a whisper in his ear.

Then, "You may go. Dismissed."

* * *

"See, Marshall? I told you their loyalties were unquestionable. They meant well."

"That is not the problem, Colonel. Why did they leave fellow crewman and pilots to die, alone, and unsupported?"

"It was hardly as if," growled the Director in his halting manner, "they could go in, guns blazing, into an enemy-held system, when they had no clear intelligence."

"So! You admit there is an enemy! You know more than you've told us!"

"Marshall!" snapped the Colonel, "This is not the time for your pathetically transparent attempts at undermining this committee and subverting its authority."

"And yet, we must listen to your patronising semantic acrobatics all day long..."

"Gentlemen," warned a fourth voice. "I grow tired of this. You all excel in your chosen areas. There is no need to become jealous of each other."

Even the Marshall was subdued. "Yes, Imperator."

"We must formulate a strategy to deal with these... invaders. Universal, and final. It must not fail."

"Yes, Imperator."

"So, ideas?"

"Alert the Navy, the private fleets, perhaps the other races. Bring them up to confrontation-ready status and exterminate any incursion."

"Far too overt. Any others?"

"One, Imperator" guttered the Director. "Send small, fast, heavily armed units to deal with them. Crack squads, I suppose you call them. Nothing larger than a corvette." He chuckled at some joke apparently only he saw.

"Of which we are now surprisingly short of..." grumbled the Marshall.

"Unless anyone has any better ideas?"

"No, Imperator."

"Then I shall address the Senate tomorrow. Send the squadrons, Marshall. Set them to a Universe-wide patrol route, to refuel and rearm as necessary. But smoothe the way for them."

"Yes, Imperator."

* * *

"Transport Vanguard Control, Transport Vanguard Leader. All quiet this end. Looks clear."

"Transport Vanguard Leader, Transport Vanguard Control. Roger that, notifying the captain now."

The TL and its vanguard belonged to MTyrell, Inc., and were bringing maintenance supplies and spares to various stations and holdings dotted around the Universe. The vanguard leader was in a Nova, and his five subordinates were flying Busters. Three of the M4s hung back with the TL, while the leader and the other two Busters flew ahead, on early warning detail. This was, after all, a pirate system. A shortcut.

The TL swung round laboriously, ion thrusters shunting the massive vessel onto a new course. It accelerated towards the vanguard leader, answering the all-clear.

The leader's sensor suite beeped. "Transport Vanguard Control, Transport Vanguard Leader. I'm getting some strange readings, here. One mizura."

He reswept the asteroids that had shown the anomalies, to the starboard side of the TL, about 20 km distant. One or two neutrino sources, behind each one. Ten asteroids, sixteen ships. Pirates!

"Transport Vanguard Control, be advised, there are probable pirates lurking in the asteroid belt. Recommend warming those turrets, fellas."

"Roger that, Transport Vanguard Leader. All hands to general quarters. Bring your ships back to defend the TL."

"Roger."

He swung back round, and slapped his afterburners to full throttle. He could hear his fusion generator whine behind the cockpit in sympathy.

He had just managed to pull back onto a parallel course with the TL when the ships soared out from behind the asteroids. They formed a rough circle, and vectored straight in for the cargo transport and its escort.

"What the-"

They weren't pirates. Or, if they were, they'd found a shipyard somewhere and had managed to hide it.

The ships were like nothing he'd seen before. They were crystalline, purple, and flew the best co-ordinated massed manoeuvers the escort captain had ever seen, including a Blue Arrows show he'd attended once in Argon Prime.

Three fired simultaneously at the closest Buster. Their scintillating purple beams decimated the shields of the stricken fighter in the first salvo, and the second ruptured the fusion toroid, tearing the little ship apart. The TL replied in kind with its starboard batteries, flinging plasma across the vacuum to scorch searing green afterimages onto the vanguard leader's retinas.

They missed their targets.

The next two Busters were destroyed before they could change course to engage the foe. The captain and the remaing two M4s throttled to the stops and charged their weapon capacitors.

"For Bremner, Bragg and Culkin, boys. Have at them."

The two Buster pilots bellowed obscenities and lewd comments as to the maternal ancestry of the attackers across a wideband signal, directed at the purple ships.

"You okay back there, Ferd?" asked the leader of his turret gunner.

"Aye. Just overshoot them a bit for me. I want a shot, too."

Looking back ahead, his eyes widened and he slammed the stick sideways. A bundle of purple beams missed his ship by all of two metres. His HUD washed with static, then cleared. He fired his twin PACs, punching through the shield and hull of the nearest ship. It exploded in a haze of blue plasma and purple hull fragments.

The Nova shuddered and the shields over the cockpit flared silver, blurring his vision for a sezura. He launched a trio of missiles against his attacker as Ferd opened up with the plasma thrower. The plasma reached first, lowering the shields. Then two of the missiles hit and blew the ship apart. The third missed and cut its motor, hunting for a new target.

One of the remaining Busters was destroyed by an enemy hugging his exhaust manifolds, scant fractions of a sezura after claiming a foe. The captain launched another missile. The leftover missile from his last barrage also acquired this target and they both homed in, accelerating at twenty gees. They slammed into the side of the vessel, but it ploughed on, leaking exhaust plasma. It impacted a small rock and vapourised.

"Transport Vanguard Leader, get back here! They're attacking the TL!"

"Roger that, inbound."

He and the remaining Buster tore back towards the transport, under siege by the remaining twelve ships. The shields were still up, but draining under the constant fusillade. Three ships were destroyed, unable to react for being attacked from the rear. Five of the ships turned to face the new threat, while the remaining four bayed at the transport.

The captain and the remaining escort launched a volley of missiles against their attackers, claiming two outright, and wounding a third. The remainder missed their targets and were going too fast to be useful. They self-detonated.

The Buster fell under a sustained attack, and the Nova's shields were peppered with shrapnel impacts.

One ship, against three.

He corkscrewed and dove between the ships, opening up Ferd for a good shot at their engines. The rear camera showed cannonades of plasma spitting out of the back of his ship like green death. The captain smiled grimly. Ferd was the best back gunner he'd ever seen. At least seven of his shots connected for every ten fired, even with all the manoeuvers he was inflicting on the fighter. The wounded ship exploded, the wreckage lazily spinning into one of the transport's attackers, both of them flaring into a blue fireball.

More purple ships arrived. "Feth! Where do they keep coming from?"

A lucky shot from one of the purple ships found a weakspot in the cargo hauler's shields. It punched through the silver barrier, and found a plasma pipeline from the reactors to the exhaust pods. It ruptured, tearing a huge gorge out of the top of the TL, including the bridge and main life support centres. The weapon capacitors detonated, sending the huge ship drifting on a sloppy course towards the gate, secondary explosion blooming over the hull.

The escort captain gawped. Damnit!

"Ferd! Overcharge that turret, take as many out as you can."

Silence. "Ferd?"

He checked the rear camera. His back end was a mess, mangled by a glancing beam. Ferd was dead.

He swung round, firing until his capacitors were depleted. He destroyed three more vessels in his berserker fury, before the remaining six sliced through his cockpit shielding and messily ended his life.


	17. Chapter 16

There were lights. Big lights. Big, blurry lights.

Cova blinked.

The lights came into focus. Then he felt the straps tying him to the gurney in the microgravity.

He wondered where he was, and what the time was. And whether there was anything to eat here.

An orderly noticed him awake, and called the chief medico over.

"How are we feeling today, Sergeant?"

"I've been better, I suppose," Cova replied. His voice was raw, but not nearly as bad as just after the plasma in the station docking hall.

The station.

"Where's Parker?"

"Whom?"

"Parker! That bastard! I'll kill him!"

"Cova, calm down! You're nowhere near fixed yet, I can't have you working yourself up."

"Did he escape? Did you kill him? Where is he?"

"Cova! Don't force me to sedate you."

He was straining against the straps, trying to free himself. He fumbled with the clasps through the blanket that covered him. He gave up. "Fine. Can I get out, at least?"

"You're not going to be stupid and go after this Parker chap, are you?"

"No. I don't think my ship's going anywhere."

"Then, yes, I think we can let you out for a while. You could see the captain, if you liked."

The medico unclasped and unstrapped Cova. He pushed himself out of the bed, still in his flightsuit.

"You had a rough time out there. Two broken ribs, a sprained ankle, vacuum exposure, plasma blistering, hypothermia, oxygen deprivation. You, friend, are one tough bugger."

Cova smiled at that. "Thank you."

His skin was no longer bruised and sensitive, but there were weals in places and if he scratched his skin, it would shower away in flakes, and blood speckle the scratch.

"There was a need for some reconstructive surgery to your lungs, but your capacity is just the same as before. Just try not to exert yourself too much."

"Thank you, doc. Where's the captain?"

* * *

"Welcome, Mr... ah, Calvert. Your cargo and efforts are appreciated. Your passengers will be transported down to the planet in a short while."

Calvert ceased looking around the spacious coaxial tunnel that served as the main hub for the high-orbit docking facilities around Argon Prime. He glanced back at the harbourmaster, a vaguely relieved expression on his face.

"I'm glad to be rid of them."

"Why? On the cards here, says there was no problem with them at all."

"Exactly."

Bemused, the harbourmaster used the grabhoops to pull himself to the next berth, where a Teladi trader was kicking up a fuss over docking fees. Various independant traders and couriers frequented the docking rings, cruising for fares and commissions.

He watched the credits transfer into his business account via his neural net.

Then he boarded his ship.

He checked the passenger cabin for any damage or refuse caused or left by the cargo. There was none. He turned to float through the cockpit, when he noticed a small flashing light in one corner. It was right at the back, and he only saw it in his periphery.

He pulled himself closer, and got his head under the seat for a better look. A small black box was wedged into the corner, against a maintenance/inspection hatch which led to one of the plasma conduits on the vessel.

There were numbers on the top of the box.

Calvert looked closer.

They were numbers that were getting smaller.

His gut wrenched and his face paled. He suddenly knew what the small black box was.

A bomb.

Frantically, he scrambled out from under the seat, and pulled himself along the main causeway as fast as he could, almost braining himself on a grabhoop in his haste. He slammed into the airlock door, and fumbled with his suit. Finally managing to get it on and sealed, he slapped the cycle controls and set it to 'Emergency Exit.'

He launched himself across the short gap so he could enter the coaxial tunnel again, searching for the harbourmaster's neural net eddress as he went.

He located it. "Evacuate the tunnel! Clear this entire section! Order all ships to raise shields and power engines!"

The harbourmaster sent a puzzled reply. "What is this?"

"There," Calvert sent, in what he thought was an exceedingly calm manner, "is a bomb aboard my ship. Not very powerful in itself, but it'll destroy my ship and much else besides. I didn't want to move it."

"Evacuating now."

Calvert could dimly hear the harbourmaster bellowing orders and threats and warnings and screaming at people to get a bloody move on in the distance. Joshua himself was occupied with flying down the central tunnel.

The bomb exploded.

* * *

"Sir! Explosion aboard the station!"

"Damage?" Duvall asked.

"Severe, sir. Atmospheric containment ruptured, orbit decaying. Heavy damage to superstructure, multiple deaths already confirmed. The station infirmary is screaming for any available medics."

"Send ours. Keep a skeleton crew aboard, just in case. Get them in EVA suits."

"Aye, sir."

The _Myrmidon_ was docked at the other end of the tunnel to the main blast, and so escaped all but superficial damage.

"Helm, request launch clearance from the harbourmaster. If the orbit of this place is decaying, I don't fancy getting a nice close look at the planet."

"Aye, sir. I've been trying. But the harbourmaster's not responding."

"What? Ops, check the confirmed deaths."

"E. Rubrick, Harbourmaster. He's dead, sir."

"Damn it. Helm, release the clamps. Take us out anyway."

"The clamps won't disengage without the harbourmaster's office's approval, sir."

"Then get an engineering team down there and cut them loose!"

The helmsman looked taken aback. It wasn't often Duvall felt the need to shout at his bridge officers. "Aye, sir. Sending the team now."

"Sensors, estimated time before we brush the atmosphere?"

"Three point three four mizuras, sir."

Duvall sat back in his chair. There was little he could do until the engineering teams had finished their work. It wasn't often that a destroyer captain felt helpless - there were few tasks the massive ships weren't capable of. Long-range patrol, guarded bulk transport, combat engagement. But gravity was inescapable. And unless they were cut free, it would kill them.

Duvall chuckled to himself, mirthlessly. He was such a happy person, usually.

* * *

The troops Calvert had been hauling were settled in a third-class lounge in the TD. In another couple of mizuras, they would be landing in the crowded spaceports of the capitol, imaginitively named Argonia City. While they were quiet and orderly, the other passengers were as far away as they could politely manage. There was an area nine seats deep around them, devoid of other passengers.

A man sidled up to the understocked bar in the lounge. "Hey, barman."

"What can I get for you?" he slid over, polishing a glass with a dirty cloth.

"You know where thems soldiers came from?"

"Can't say I do, I'm afraid. They took a private charter, I think. Halfway across the Universe. Looked like whoever lives over there doesn't want them either."

The thing about lander barmen, despite not being especially well-travelled, was that they knew almost everything going on in the Universe, usually before anyone else did. It was even the subject of a research project once, but little came of it. No one knew why. It went beyond even the lofty limits of gossip and rumour. They just... knew.

"Right-o. Your favourite cocktail, then. Just a small one, though. The missus don't like it when I drink. In a clean galss."

"You got a private ride?"

"Naw, I'll just find me a cab somewhere. They're usually pretty sound."

"Happy travelling!" said the barkeep brightly, as he handed the punter his drink.

"Cheers." The man returned to his seat, liquids pouch in hand.

With a dull, rough thump, the lander touched down on one of the larger landing pads. Maglev trains, private cars and taxis swarmed into the cavernous passenger section, collecting their charges and leaving again. Higher up the hull, larger cargo-haulers and lorries picked up the freight and cargo, and redistributed it to warehouses and businesses.

The soldiers, however, went straight to the busiest part of the city, the merchants' quarter, still dressed in their armour, webbing and weaponry.

One of the soldiers sent a curt text message via the city's datanet to the landside Police:

_The city is now hostage. You will do as we say. Failure to comply will result in civilian deaths._

You have one standard time unit to reply before sanctions commence.


	18. Chapter 17

"Who the hell are they, where the hell did they come from, why the hell didn't we know about this beforehand and where the hell is Cova?" yelled the Chief. He stood behind his desk, leaning on it with both hands and red in the face with anger.

"I... don't know, sir. Ambitious, somewhere, they're sneaky and I have no idea. In that order," replied a constable.

"Very. Funny. Y'know? Right now, I wouldn't mind shaking hands with your face. Get out."

The constable left, blowing his cheeks out.

"And someone tell me what the merry feth a 'standard time unit' is!" the Chief screamed out of his closing office door.

* * *

"Sir! Engineering teams report clamps open. We can leave the station."

"Ops, bring our medics back. Get as many refugees aboard as possible."

"Co-ordinating now, aye."

"Helm, take us out as soon as we have our crew back."

"Aye, sir. Exit vector plotted."

The _Myrmidon_ was docked near one end of the station, furthest from both the blast and the atmosphere. The other end was just starting to brush the thermosphere, leaving a faintly glowing trail of fire across the night sky over Argon Prime. The trail grew brighter with every passing mizura.

"Sir!" Ops called. "Our crew are aboard, along with roughly two hundred refugees. We can't hold any more. The airlocks are closed." The Ops officer looked anguished at having to leave so many more people to die.

"Taking us out, sir," announced the helmsman, forestalling any reassurance Duvall could have given to the Ops man.

"Sensors, show me the station."

The gravidar display dissolved into a camera image of the spindly station. It was now trailing a wake of fire over 20 kilometres long. Two ships managed to break free of their moorings before the station snapped in two, shearing the coaxial tunnel into uneven pieces, and scattering more debris into the atmosphere.

"Comms," Duvall said quietly. "Is there any data traffic still coming from the station?"

"I... yes, sir. It's not exactly pleasant to listen to."

"Put it through the speakers."

"Sir?"

"Do it."

A new voice filled the bridge, interspersed with crashes of static and a roaring sound in the background. "Please! Someone! We need rescue! We are going to die here! Anyone! It's so hot... I don't-" Another burst of static. "... can you just..."

"Signal deteriorating, sir."

"...is anyone even listening? We-... use..." Another wash of static. "... please..."

A final hiss and screech, then silence.

"Signal lost."

* * *

"Medic!" called Cova, shouldering through the crowd. A despairing young man in a flightsuit looked around wearily, expecting another demand for help. He looked Cova over.

"You're fine. Go away, make room for the serious injuries."

"What? Oh... No, that's not why I'm here. I'm Cova. I was wondering if there was any way I could help."

"Oh!" the physician looked relieved. "Well, now that you mention it, you could help me by keeping the crowds clear so I can see to this woman unmolested. It's a fething mob."

"I'll see what I can do. Can I borrow that?" Cova pointed at a stethoscope case. It was about 30 centimetres long, and a solid plastic construction.

"Sure, take it."

He grabbed it out of the air and brandished it like a small club. "Back!" he bellowed. "Get back, now! Can't you see that he's trying to help the poor girl? Leave him be for a mizura! You will get your turn!"

The medic finished strapping up the woman's forearm, which had a nasty gash running its length. "There," he said. "Try to take it easy on that. If you can," he added, eyeing the crowds. "Just be careful, OK?"

She nodded. "Thank you."

"Cova," the medic called. "There's more people that need help over here."

"Coming."

"By the way," said the medic, holding out a hand in a brief respite from the crowd, "the name's Dorden."

"Pleasure. This guy next?"

Dorden cast a professional eye over the elderly man. "No. He won't make it. There are other people here who need the help more."

And so it went on. Cova and Dorden spent the next stazura milling round the hall, tending the wounded and traumatised.

* * *

"Sir!" called Dexter, the comms man. "Picking up a general call from the surface. It's the Police."

"Notify Cova. They need him back?"

"They want to know where he is, yes sir."

"Tell him to take a tender down. They can handle re-entry, right?"

"Theoretically, yes, sir. But-"

"Perfect. Send him down."

"Aye, sir."

* * *

After another half a quazura or so, Cova found his way into the headquarters.

"Cova! Where the sacred feth have you been?"

"Sorry, Cap. I had a couple of things to take care of."

"Well, you look like the back end of an Argnu. Get to work. Looks like we have terrorists in the city."

"What? When did that happen?"

"Probably about the same time this did." The Chief swiveled a monitor so that Cova could see that screen.

"What, a meteor storm?" It clicked. "Oh..."

"Oh, Cova?"

"There was a bomb on one of the high-orbit docks. That's the end result. I don't know how many people died. I've been helping some of the survivors."

"Congratulations, have a medal. Why the hell weren't you down here? Look." The Chief showed him a printout of the datavised demand.

"Have we replied yet?"

"We don't know where to reply to! But we did find the datanet node they used to transmit it. Wanna go down with them? The military has been forwarded a copy of the note and our investigations, they're sending some people, too."

"I've been bored since I got back. Where are they?"

* * *

_"Well, an especially fine evening tonight for our viewers on Argon Prime. An exceptionally beautiful meteor storm burned through the upper atmosphere just under a quazura ago. There are still fragments of it to see, if you're in a position to see it._

One of the soldiers glanced at a colleague, then composed another message to send to the Police.

_Your time allowance is expended. No reply was received._

Sanctions are commencing.

The hundred soldiers crouched and leapt into the air, towards the night-life crowds.

Unfortunately, the storm was not natural. There was some kind of sabotage attempt on a high-orbit dock, and the meteor storm is all that remains. Death toll is unknown, but expected to be high.

I suggest you check in with any family in the space-travel industry, folks. They could have been there.

Hey, Larry. Cheer us up with some nice forecasting for the colonies."

* * *


	19. Chapter 18

The Director sat back in his chair, and sighed. Dusk was settling outside his window, but it changed the ambient light inside very little. He leaned forward and tapped on a keyboard. Figures scrolled across a recessed screen set into the desk.

427 disappearances in the past two wozuras. Seven confirmed sightings of the 'unidentified' purple ships, although the genuine total was likely to be higher. Roughly two point seven four billion credits in property damage, not including the high-orbit docks over Argon Prime.

105 terrorist soldiers in the capitol, terrorising the locals. Similar numbers on the homeworlds of the Boron, Teladi, Split and Paranid. Total number, 427.

He should've been told that the schedule had been brought forward. No wonder he had found it hard to keep supressing the reports from the other races. It had taken supreme determination to keep the Argon government and intelligence services in the dark.

He would go and ask the nearest people who would know. He set a 'Do Not Disturb' sign to light above his door, then stepped behind his large Argnuhide chair. He pressed a palm against the wall, crossed the threshold that appeared, and closed it behind him.

* * *

Naeva looked out of her window. Her apartment was in a high-rise building near the centre of the merchants' quarter. She had been hearing loud noises and screams all evening, even up here on the lofty heights of the 54th floor. She had assumed that it was simply a particularly raucous party, and thought nothing of it.

But now, as she looked down on the street far below, she could just make out the fleeing crowds and scattered shopfront furniture and smashed windows.

Some party. She flicked onto one of the news channels via her neural net.

_"We are receiving reports of a major disturbance in the merchants' quarter of the capitol. Apparently upwards of fifty armed assailants are attacking everyone they can catch. Their motives are unknown, or where they're from, or even who they are._A pause. 

Despite the danger, we have sent an especially brave volunteer down to the district in question to obtain a first hand account. We- She's online, now.."

"It's absolute pandemonium down here! I can just make out some men cald all in black, and thye have guns. Lots of guns. I- feth! Sorry. My, but they're fast. They seem to be attacking at random. The elderly, the young, women- oh good God! They just grabbed a child by the neck. He's lifting him off the floor! I don't- You bastards! You utter, cowardly fething bastards!"

"What just happened?"

"They shot him! They just shot the little boy! He must've been five, if he was a tazura! I swear, the authorities better get down here now. This has to-"

"Jan? Jan, are you there?"

"More on this as it comes in, folks."

Naeva snapped the channel off, appalled and scared. She scoured her apartment, locking her windows, closing her vents, and deadbolting her door.

Then she put a call through the datanet, but due to the sheer number of calls for help the bandwidth was clogged and unreliable.

"Trent," she started. There was a sezura's delay.

"Naeva?" the reply was tinny and and crackled.

"I'm scared, Trent. There are more nasties in the city. They're killing everyone, like that man on the station did. What if they get here? Please, get me away from here."

The line was steadily filling with more static as the datanet became further overloaded. "I... breaking up... need... soon."

The line snapped off.

* * *

"Naeva? I can barely hear you, you're breaking up. Do you need help? Naeva? Screw it, I'll be there soon."

"Commander?" Duvall asked.

"The manageress of the station, sir. Permission to take a tender planetside along with a small team."

"Purpose?"

"To get her off the planet, sir. She's not safe."

"Neither are many of the citizens down there. What's one more?"

"Quinn? That's not like you. You..." Trent trailed off.

"Yes, Commander?" Duvall tilted his head back in challenge. "Are you going to finish that statement?"

Trent steeled himself. "You've changed, since you were captured. Colder. You - you used to care. Sir."

Duvall blinked. Glanced at the rest of the bridge officers - all of whom had turned around to watch. Apprehension was written on their faces. He looked down at his lap for a sezura, then back at Trent.

"Take Alkad and his second-in-command," he said quietly. "Be quick."

"Aye, sir. Thank you."

Trent hurried from the bridge.

* * *

"Marshall, the first hunter squadrons are ready to be sent," an orderly poked his head round the Marshall's office door.

The Marshall nodded. "Thank you. Sent them immediately. Remind them that they are now effectively autonomous. Their orders are standing, and any maintenance will be financed to the Government."

"Yes, sir."

He dismissed the orderly with a dismissive wave of the hand, and waited for the door to swing shut with a soft hiss. He keyed a code into his desk terminal.

"Imperator, the squadrons are departing. We can expect results within a wozura. A mazura, maximum."

"Thank you, Marshall. Assemble the home defense fleets."

"Why?" he asked, puzzled. "Imperator," he added too late.

"You have a disadvantage in that you are not based on Argon Prime. The planet is under attack."

"It's _what_?" roared the Marshall. "By whom? The Split? Paranid? It can't be the Boron."

"It is none of the above. It is also a ground attack. The fleet is essentially useless in this endeavour. This is the Colonel's battlefield."

"Then why am I assembling the fleet?"

"A show of force is necessary, to show the people that something is being done."

"Of course, Imperator. My apologies."

The link snapped closed. The Marshall had a tendency to get caught up in the moment, and forget things past or seemingly insignificant. While most of the Board was selected from a military background, the Imperator was almost always a politician. Propaganda was what they lived and breathed. This forgetfulness frustrated the Marshall, but he could see little he could do about it.

He ordered the First and Second Fleets to rendezvous over Argon Prime, nightside. They'd be there in the next few stazuras. He would board his command M6 and join them there.

* * *

"Captain, Major. A fine evening for an engagement, wouldn't you say?" the Colenel addressed the head of the landside Police and his immediate subordinate in the Marines. They both just grunted their grim assessment of the Colonel's jovial words.

"Our overriding desideratum is to protect the civilians here. Then, kill all but a handful of these terrorists. Then, capture the remainder. I'll leave it to your capable hands how you best achieve these goals."

"You had me right up to 'deciderations,' Colonel," replied the Police captain.

"Desideratum, friend. Objective, if you want to be boring about it. Remind me of your resources here?"

"I have sniper pairs on the corner of every building in a kilometre radius of the merchant's quarter, and a couple of hundred officers on the ground. Riot/Mob, with live ammo. Any other volunteers that wanted to help. I don't have a headcount of those yet."

"Excellent. I'm sure I can find a use for your officers. But I require those snipers to help contain the enemy in this area. Major, arrange an airlift ferry convoy to evacuate the civilians. I'll lead the troops myself."

"Yessir." The Major jogged away, shouting orders.

The Colonel had ordered a regiment to completely quell the invaders. Just shy of a thousand highly trained and disciplined soldiers, heavily armed and armoured. They had surrounded the area that the soldiers were confirmed to be in.

"All ground units - covering advance," barked the Colonel into his throat mike. "Target enemies in close proximity of civilians first, then targets of opportunity. Extreme fire discretion to be used - I will personally deal with anyone who harms a civilian."

The soldiers began 'leapfrogging' down the streets, down towards the junction where the enemy soldiers were still terrorising the residents. One man would move forward, sweep his lines of fire, and cover the next person as they moved for cover further down the causeway.

There was a crack, and an enemy solider in the distance toppled, his leg missing from the hip down. The snipers had opened fire. Another enemy soldier raised his rifle and sent a replying burst of energy skyward. He was rewarded a few sezuras later by the sound of the sniper falling from the roof to the street fifty storeys below with a wet smack.

Battle was joined.

* * *

The tender screamed down through the atmosphere, and vectored towards the capitol as soon as it was clear of the cloud cover. The lights of the city soon appeared on the horizon.

"How much longer?" Trent asked.

"No more than a couple of mizuras, Commander," replied Dret, Alkad's second. "We came down on the right side of the city for her building. It's between us and the merchants' quarter, where the fighting is."

"Thank you."

Alkad had somehow managed to bring his autocannon, despite the relatively cramped cockpit. He was currently checking it for dirt and obstructions, with a tenderness Trent had never even known the giant of a man possessed. "You ready, Alkad? I don't know what state her block's in."

"Bright lights and loud noises? My favourite leisure spot." He giggled.

"There," Trent pointed. "That's her building."

Dret manipulated the controls, and the tender swung round to land on the platform halfway up the building. Trent was the first out the door. He tried messaging Naeva through the neural net, but it was now completely down. It didn't really matter, as she came running out of the building towards the shuttle anyway.

"Trent!" she launched herself at him, and grabbed him round the neck in an embrace generally reserved for the long-lost twin. She released him. "You came."

"Yeah, I..." he rubbed his neck. "Come on. We should go."

As if to prove his point, a stray missle shot past the platform and slammed into the side of the building, sending a shower of broken glass and concrete streetward. A crack in the distance. Screams.

"In the shuttle."

Dret and Trent followed Naeva inside. Alkad stopped and retrieved an ancient handheld communicator from a leg pocket and held it to his ear. It looked about seventy jazuras old.

"Hallo? Oh, hello! A pleasure to hear from- oh. No, I understand. All of them? And then the Colonel. Yes. Be right down, Mr. D."

He took a few steps back from the shuttle, and levelled his autocannon. Trent, busy with seeing himself strapped in, glanced out of a side window, and saw Alkad. Somehow, he knew calling out to the mercenary would be useless.

"Everybody down!" he yelled. He grabbed Naeva and yanked her to the floor. Dret turned to look for the cause of Trent's alarm just as Alkad opened fire.

A torrent of shells screamed blind fury at the shuttle, peppering it with holes and showering the pad with sparks and shards of metal. Five hundred rounds tore through the cabin and cockpit, where Trent, Naeva and Dret were.

The autocannon clicked empty. Alkad offered a small chuckle as his parting gift to the tender, then went to find a lift.

The inside of the cabin was a smoking ruin.


	20. Chapter 19

The Director peered around a corner. He could see the terrorists taking cover in a nearby cantina, taking potshots at the Argon military. There was plenty of cover and obstacles between him and the soldiers. Plenty of shadow. It should be safe.

He crouched and ran from an overturned table to a wrecked vehicle to a burning lane divider to a churned-up flowerbed, and then scrambled into the cantina.

One of the terrorists turned to face him. He didn't remove his helmet.

There was a pause. Then, "Hail."

"Hail," the Director replied. "Why are you ahead of schedule?"

"We were ready."

"No one informed me."

"We assumed, you being in one of their intelligence agencies, that you would know."

"That does mean I have to reply upon my subordinates."

"You can bring it up with the Minds later."

"The Minds are coming?" the Director asked, in his smallest rasp.

"Yes," the soldier replied simply and sent a shot flying down the concourse to strike a marine in the chest.

"I cannot be here. A colleague is in command of the enemy soldiers. He will recognise me."

"You cannot leave. You are here now. You must assist. The Minds command it."

The Director sighed. "As we wish. Where can I be of most assistance?"

"Find a weapon and repel the enemy."

* * *

"Sir, all sections reporting heavy fire. Several squads are pinned."

"Bring more squads up to reinforce and relieve them. We cannot afford to leave the civilians with them. Where are those air transports?"

"Two mizuras out, Colonel."

"Very well. Bring forward the heavier weapons to deal with entrenched opposition."

"Yessir." The major jogged off again.

"And you, Captain? How are your snipers faring?"

"I've lost a couple of snipers, but the spotters are all trained to handle the weapons as well. The buildings are all still covered."

"Good. Time to join the front line, I think." The Colonel stood and marched towards the intersection, compact laser pistol drawn and humming.

"Colonel!" called the Captain, struggling to keep up. "Are you sure that's wise?"

"Wise or not, my friend, an officer leads from the front! How are the soldiers expected to do anything if their commander won't?"

"Good point," mumbled the captain.

They caught up with the concentration of troops that signified the 'front line,' staggered and loose as it was.

"Tighten your firing lines! Fire only when you have a clear shot! Leave not one enemy standing!" called the Colonel. The troops, hearing the apparently fearless and clear voice of their commander ring out across the front, immediately cheered up and began fighting back with greater focus and discipline.

A terrorist soldier, showing more of a target than he should have, lost an arm and his throat to withering laser fire. He collapsed into the street, spasming. A rocket slashed past him to hit a wrecked car and explode, showering the intersection with shrapnel.

"Sir!" called a corporal. "Look!"

The armless soldier was struggling to rise, and had armed his pistol and was blazing away at the marines, heedless of his injury.

"All units!" bellowed the Colonel. "Kill that man!"

Lasers and tracers flicked their paths towards the maimed soldier. His flak vest caught fire from the combined heat of the laser discharge, and the explosive shells tore chunks out of the ground and wall near him, and well as the hastily erected barricade behind him. A rocket slammed into his midsection and detonated.

The corporal had switched to infrared. "What's left ain't moving, sir."

The Colonel was stunned at the force necessary to put one of these terrorists down permanently. "All sections, rolling advance!"

The four sections pressed forward, increasing intensity of fire until the terrorists couldn't poke a head around a corner for fear of it being blown off. Missiles slashed down the streets, throwing chunks of dirt and masonry into the sky from their explosive impacts. One fireteam had set up an emplaced machine rifle on the eastern road, adding its chattering roar to the burning night. A thunderhead burst overhead, and heavy warm drops of rain drenched both sides in a matter of seconds.

"Marvellous," murmured the Colonel, without a trace of sincerity.

* * *

Trent coughed, and tried to blink the acrid electrical smoke out of his eyes. "You OK?" he asked Naeva.

"Still in one piece," she spluttered.

"Dret?"

There was no answer. Dret was slumped over the control board, three ragged holes in his side. "Damnit," cursed Trent as he checked the man's pulse. He tried the airlock. It was jammed. Trent sighed.

He took a step back, then gave a solid kick at the door. It budged slightly. Trent gave a harder kick with a grunt and the airlock swung open to bang against the peppered hull. He turned back towards Naeva and held out a hand to help her up. "Come on. We need to get off the planet."

"The spaceport. There'll be something there we can... borrow."

Trent raised an eyebrow at that, but offered no comment. He pulled his pistol from a hip holster, and clicked off the safety. He cast about for a lift, or an unlocked door, anything. There. A maintenance lift for cleaning the windows on the building. They jogged over and found it functional. Trent helped Naeva clamber over the barrier.

Once inside, he inspected the control panel. He pushed a button experimentally and the lift started to rise. He pushed it again and it stopped. "Wrong button," he muttered. He was about to try another button when Naeva reached around him and clicked a different one, and the car started to descend through the bad weather towards another kind of storm altogether.

"Thanks," he said.

"No worries," Naeva replied, looking down over the side. "I think the bad guys are losing."

"Oh?" Trent asked, joining her at the barrier. Sure enough, the terrorists had been pressed back into a rough ring at the centre of the intersection. They were still putting up a fight, though. An Argon marine was thrown backward by a kinetic projectile, his shoulder-carried missile launcher firing into the sky. The rocket arched around and slammed into Naeva's building, twenty metres from the descending lift. It rocked from side to side alarmingly in the overpressure wave.

* * *

"Colonel, the sniper teams are reporting ammunition shortages," the Police captain reported.

"Ammunition shortages? By what cause? They should have enough for a day's worth uninterrupted firing."

"Yes, sir. But the spotters have made a count of the remaining terrorists. Apart from one or two that were completely blown apart or incinerated, upwards of ninety-five percent of the enemy force is intact and combat capable."

"Ninety-five percent!" shouted the Colonel. "How? I've personally shot twenty of the civilian-murdering bastards myself."

"The snipers report that enemies sustaining normally fatal injuries or disability are simply getting back up and continuing to fight."

"How?"

"I don't know! It's bad enough that this is happening. It's bad enough that it's happening in my juristiction, and it's bad enough that I'm seemingly powerless to stop it. I'm hardly used to being ordered around myself. Sir," the captain added belatedly.

"Captain," the Colonel began. "I realise that this is difficult for you. But if you were a soldier under my command I would have just shot you for insubordination under fire."

The captain stiffened, and narrowed his eyes. "Yes, sir."

He returned to the communications centre and continued liasing between the police and Marine forces.

* * *

Cova huddled behind an overturned car. He caught his breath, then risked a peek around the side of the chassis. The terrorists were still in their defensive ring, still refusing to be destroyed.

"Feth," he muttered. "It's like there's a hundred Parkers out there."

"What was that?" asked a Marine crouched next to him.

"Oh, nothing. You OK?"

"Holding up," replied the Marine gruffly. "Jankowski."

"Cova."

"It's a pleasure," Jankowski replied as he stood to send a shot or two stinging towards the enemy. Cova leaned around the side of the car and emptied his pistol clip at the enemy line. He saw a soldier topple over backward, then rise again.

"Feth it."

"All units," piped up his earpiece. "Press forward. It is imperative that we finish this."

"Certainly sir, Colonel," Jankowski checked his mic was off. "Fool. Be like ocean waves on a bloody rock, this."

Nevertheless, he reloaded his rifle and checked his webbing, then peeked around the burned out hulk of the car. "You coming?" he asked Cova, who was also checking his weapons.

"Sure."

He jumped up, walked out from behind his makeshift shelter and started towards the enemy ring, putting shots into helmeted faces and torsos, with Jankowski and two hundred other Marines either side of him.


	21. Chapter 20

"Why aren't they back yet?" Duvall demanded of Dexter, the communications officer.

"I don't know, sir. I've lost the transponder beacon for the tender as well. That storm is wreaking havoc with orbit-to-surface communications. It's a real doozy. All I can pick up from landside are snatches of sitrep and garbled chatter. If Trent is signalling us, I can't hear it."

"Damn it," he muttered. "Clarke, sensors, what exactly is the Navy doing?"

"Forming up in low orbit, sir. Looks like the whole Home Territories Defence Fleet has turned up. Their combined fusion exhausts are in danger of polluting the atmosphere, they're so low. Particle activity in the ionosphere is already up by forty percent."

"Show me."

Clarke punched a few buttons, and the gravidar display dissolved into a camera view of the planet. Tiny specks of light betrayed the multitude of ships around Argon Prime. The carriers and destroyers were the brightest, almost drowning out the swarm of fighters and corvettes. Behind the fleet stretched a bright lance of plasma exhaust several kilometres wide, and beyond that, a glowing blue-green borealis with an angry red core swirling in kilometre-high curtains.

"Ops, rotate the watches. I need some sleep."

Duvall left the bridge, and floated down the corridors towards his quarters.

* * *

The Director saw the Marines simultaneously stand and advance toward the circle of defenders. He grimaced. This had the potential to turn into a bloodbath. He turned to the nearest armoured figure.

"Tie my hands."

The figure paused. "For what reason?"

"I'm preserving my cover here. I can still be useful."

Without another word, the soldier knelt in front of the Director and tied his hands at the wrist. "Strike me," he ordered. He received a flat punch to the eye. He grunted; there hadn't been a satisfactory hesitation there at all.

Sighing, he turned and knelt in the centre of the circle. The Marines were getting closer, despite taking moderate casualties. A scream of engines overhead drew his eye towards the first of the evacuation ferries arriving to take the civilians away. The Director didn't see much of a point in it. A rocket shot upward and slammed into the portside wing, forcing the transport into a barrel roll that sent it roaring into the side of an apartment building. Three more aircraft screamed overhead to replace it.

The Argon forces were metres away from the defending line when the defenders crouched as one, then leapt up towards the surrounding skyscrapers.

* * *

Cova was sure he'd wind up dead by the end of the evening. He was wet through from the storm, tired, and at his wit's end. Jankowski was faring better, but Cova supposed he was used to it.

"You still there, Cova?" Jankowski yelled over his shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he replied.

The Marine laughed. "Good, 'cause-"

Cova never got to find out the reason, as a laser bolt came stinging through the rain to remove the back of Jankowski's head in a shockingly violent spray of bone, brain and blood. The soldier's arms dropped to his sides, then he slumped to his knees and finally toppled forward to land face first in a puddle.

Cova emptied his magazine into the nearest terrorist, then wasted a moment reflecting that he should probably feel bad for feeling relieved that he hadn't known Jankowski all that well, and was therefore excused from having to be upset.

He wasted another moment trying to sort that out.

A bullet zipped out of the dark and struck him in his left bicep. It registered as a kick in the shoulder that spun him round and dumped him on the ground. Then the rain reached the wound and it started to hurt. Looking back, expecting the finishing shot that would end him, he instead saw the terrorists jump impossibly high and start climbing up the buildings surrounding the intersection as they were silhouetted by a fork of lightning.

Over the storm he could just make out the smashing of glass as the terrorists forced their way into apartments, then the screaming of the citizens holed up inside.

The Marines charged past him, racing for better positions on the intersections to target the terrorists still outside the buildings, climbing higher. The Colonel himself walked past, shouting orders and marking targets for his sharpshooters to take down.

There was an explosion next to a wrecked car that killed the three Marines crouching there. A tree exploded as another Marine ducked for cover behind it. Three more went off in quick succession.

"Hold! Your! Positions!" bellowed the Colonel. "The enemy have mined the intersection!"

The Marines froze, and the explosions stopped. A medic crouched next to Cova, and set about strapping the ragged mess of his upper arm up and then binding the arm to his side. "Chew on this," he said, giving Cova a small capsule. It was a mild painkiller. It didn't really help.

"Thanks," Cova grimaced. One of the evacuation transports landed nearby, with a few aircrew shepherding scared and wet civilians into the hold. The medic told him to go and get fixed up in a proper hospital.

Cova rose and staggered towards the ferry, feeling lightheaded. He slumped into one of the surprisingly comfortable seats and strapped in, fighting to stay awake. He lost, and promptly lapsed into a deep sleep.

* * *

"You OK?" Trent grasped Naeva's arm to stop her tumbling out of the lift. They were descending, but still ten storeys up when the missile hit the building.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Looks like the good guys are pressing home," she added with a grim, forced-sounding laugh.

Below, the Marines had broken cover and were advancing on the terrorists. The terrorists, however, didn't seem to be under much pressure, despite the advancing wall of armoured flesh bearing down them.

Then they leapt. Naeva gasped, and Trent gave a shout of surprise. Not only had they jumped an impossibly large height, but several had landed on the side of the building Trent and Naeva were currently trying to escape from. Trent readied his sidearm. Its powercell hummed, and a small light on the barrel lit green.

Most clambered up a few floors, then smashed a window and entered the building proper. Three, however, noticed the lift, and scrambled upward to meet it.

"Oh, feth," Trent muttered darkly. He leaned carefully over the side of the cage and took aim at the closest terrorist. The laser bolt caught him in the shoulder, and he tumbled down to slam into the unyielding pavement. The next shared a similar fate. The third managed to get a hold on the floor of the lift before Trent could shoot him, but ultimately landed next to his compatriots.

Trent watched the bodies for a few sezuras, but they made no move.

* * *

"Commander," called one of the bridge officers aboard the hunter-killer corvette _Agamemnon_. "Entering system Priest Rings. Covert sweep pattern commencing."

Commander Robsen shifted in his chair. "Confirm with the escorts. But look up from your station now and again, leftenant. Look outside." He nodded towards the armoured ceramic composite portal.

The system was a ruin. "Just like Omicron Lyrae," someone said.

"Comms. Any distress beacons? Transponders? Scavengers, even?"

"Not that I can hear, sir. But it is quite noisy out there, with radio echoes from the planets and moons, and some diffuse ones from the system's asteroid belt. Any coherent transmissions are being scattered by all the clutter out there anyway, sir."

"Form up the escorts, we're continuing the patrol."

"Aye, sir."

Robsen thought his orders annoyingly vague. 'Fly around the gate network, look for weird purple ships, kill any you find.' about covered it. A considerable effort had gone into smoothing the way, though. Not once had he been hailed by a security destroyer, or asked for identification codes from gate guardian software or police bases. Any shipyard he docked with simply refuelled the _Agamemnon_ and performed any necessary maintenance, then sent him on his way without even mentioning payment. The _Agamemnon_ herself had also received a first rate overhaul. The engines had been practically rebuilt from the bottom up, and he had two thirds again the acceleration he had before. His manoeuvering thrusters had been replaced with more powerful variants, giving the massive ship the agility of an M3. Weapons capacitors had been uprated, and a small secondary fusion toroid installed to give maximum firepower and recharge rates.

The shakedown cruise had left the ship in perfect working order, but Robsen shaking himself with shock and awe. He loved his new ship, like a twenty-jazura old with a hotrod car.

"Sir, plasma exhaust in the debris field. Recent, perhaps only a mizura old."

"A Paranid survivor?"

"Spectrographic analysis pulls a blank, sir. It doesn't match any known fuel combination."

"Weapons, warm the turrets and forward batteries. Send arming codes to the missiles. Comms, alert the escorts. Helm, follow the trail."

"Weapons running hot, sir. Secondary toroid operating under nominal parameters. Missiles ready for launch, aye."

"Escorts alerted, aye."

"Engines answering full forward, aye."

A calm had descended over the bridge as practise and duty took over. The possibility of combat didn't phase a single member of his sixty-member crew, not anymore. The four Novas formed a diamond around the Centaur.

"Robsen to Escort Commander, come in closer. Careful of those chunks of debris. This might be hard enough without one of you guys pancaking onto a dead station."

"Forming closer, aye." The fighters drifted closer with a small squirt from their cold-gas manoeuvering thrusters.

"Sir, sensors showing fresh plasma exhaust, bearing three-four-nine mark zero-one-zero, heading three-six-zero mark zero."

Eleven degrees to their port, ten above them and on a parallel heading. Coincidence? Robsen thought not.

"Full spherical sweep. Use radar if you have to, gravidar won't be worth a damn in this field. I want to know if there are any more ships out there."

There was a short pause. "Sir, seven more. They're all around us. I- Sir! Ships are manoeuvering onto an attack vector."

"Weapons," Robsen called. "Shields to maximum. Escorts to fire at will."

"Shields to maximum, aye."

The eight alien vessels targeted the Novas first, two apiece. Contrails from missiles flashed purple, then green, then purple again as weapons fire slashed past and through them. For every hit the _Agamemnon_ and her escorts scored, two more were inflicted upon the escorts.

"One of the escorts is reporting shields under ten percent, sir."

"Helm, manoeuver to cover."

"Intercepting, aye."

The acceleration pushed the crew deeper into their seats, as the corvette pitched upward and swung round to absorb some of the fire directed at the fighter. Robsen saw the ship come into view in front of them, just in time to see the shields fail, a purple beam smashing into the rear cockpit killing the gunner, another mangling the starboard wing mount, and three in unison converge on the ship's fusion toroid. The shields flared from being brushed by tendrils of plasma and small segments of armour plate and stress skeleton careened away.

"Weapons, destroy the vessels that took our escort down. They have target priority."

"Aye, sir."

Turrets tracked the enemy ships, and sent pulses of screaming plasma chasing after the vessels. Small-yield missiles leapt away from the launch cradles at forty gees, to slam into purple hulls. The Centaur nimbly yawed round, and the forward plasma batteries unleashed green Hell upon a fighter unlucky enough to cross the corvette's path. Three purple-blue explosions blossomed in the night.

Two escorts working together managed to nail another enemy. Four ships against four. "Finish this," growled Robsen.

"Sir! New contacts, bearing one-eight-zero through one-six-eight mark zero-one-two. Another eight."

Robsen reviewed his options. The main problem was not knowing exactly how many alien ships were still in Priest Rings. He shook his head. "Fighting retreat, maximum resistance. Have the escorts wheel in front of us, attack the enemy, then wheel back and overtake us again. Take us back to the gate, redline the reactors."

"Engines answering one hundred twenty percent, aye."

"Shields at fifty percent, sir."

A Nova streamed past the corvette. As Robsen watched, three thick purple beams slammed into in engine manifolds. It yawed around, out of control. Then an orange beam buckled the fighter and split it in two. It was so bright the viewports automatically darkened. Even then, the bridge crew were momentarily blinded by the flash. The shields flared silver from debris impacts.

The remaining escort overhauled the _Agamemnon_, then flipped over and killed its engines, allowing inertia to carry it on at a steady speed while still using the rudder thrusters to target incoming enemies.

"What was that?" a senior sensors officer asked a subordinate after regaining the use of his eyes.

"Unkown, sir. Powerful: it overloaded most of the forward optical sensor suite. Half of the clusters are blown."

The last escort fired a double salvo of mid-yield missiles before being speared by a quartet of purple lances. The _Agamemnon_'s turrets churned out a steady stream of green fire, claiming two more enemy vessels. The purple ships replied, pounding the aft port quarter.

"Sir, rear portside shields failing."

A series of muffled thumps sent shudders through the vessel. Three crewmembers were blown out of the breaches in the hull as compartments explosively decompressed. The ship started to yaw, before the attitude thrusters fired to compensate and the shields restored themselves.

"Damage report," Robsen called.

"One plasma conduit ruptured; rerouting through auxiliaries. Four compartments compromised, sealed. Four dead, seven injured. Emergency medical team en route."

"Sir, toroid coolant approaching dangerous temperature."

"Vent primary coolant, shunt the secondaries into circulation."

"Replacing coolant, aye."

"How much longer does that give us?"

"At this speed and energy expenditure? Four, five mizuras. Six at the outside."

"Feth. Weapons, double the missile fire rate. Clear the skies."

"Missiles firing, aye."

Contrails arced around the hull of the corvette as the missile cleared the launch cradles and acquired targets. They accelerated at fifteen gees, slamming into shields and hulls. Three more purple-blue explosions blossomed. The gas exhaust flared alternating green and purple in some mad parody of disco as the single large vessel traded fire with the few remaining small ones.

"Twenty kilometres to the gate, sir. Dead ahead."

"Acknowledged."

"Sir! Energy surge, I think-"

An orange beam stabbed out of the debris field, punching clean through the aft shields and rupturing a plasma conduit to the portside engine structure. Secondary explosions shuddered through the superstructure as the cryogenic tanks containing the ship's fusion fuel detonated. The _Agamemnon_ fell into a slow tumble as the impulse from the escaping gases took hold, sending it stem over stern.

On the bridge, Robsen screamed as shrapnel tore into his shoulder. He gasped in pain as he was pulled upwards against his restraint straps by the tumble of the ship, making his shoulder flare in agony. "Report!" he managed.

"Aft... aft sections not responding, sir. Internal sensors are out. Fire suppression systems non-functional. Both turrets offline. Fuel stores at seven percent. Stresses on the superstructure approaching critical. Auxiliary power systems coming on-line, barely. Attitude control non-functional, we can't stop the spin. Shutting off main engines."

"Helm, tell me we're still on course for the gate."

"Aye, sir. Roughly. We might scrape one of the nacelles on the way in, it's hard to tell. Inertia should carry us through, though."

Clutching at his shoulder with his right hand, Robsen watched first the wheeling stars, debris field and curving plasma exhausts of his former attackers as they peeled off, their prey no longer a threat to them. He then watched the blood seeping between his fingers spiral away in freefall, forming spherical droplets, then wobbling conglomerates when they collided. He found it quite mesmerising.

The _Agamemnon_ and her remaining crew passed through the gate to Cloudbase South East.


	22. Chapter 21

Joshua Calvert awoke with a start. He'd had the worst dream, he thought. Then he remembered. The bomb, the screams. The death. He dry-retched until a medical orderly floated over and slapped an anti-nausea patch on his neck.

"Easy, pal. You're okay, now. You're safe. Your warning meant a lot more people were evacuated than if you hadn't."

He vaguely remembered boarding another vessel amid a mob of frightened people. "What ship is this?"

"The independent destroyer _Myrmidon_. We cut ourselves free of the station before it disintegrated."

Josh nearly asked as to the state of his ship, before remembering that the bomb was aboard it. The bomb that destroyed the station. Killed all those people. "How... how many people were left on the station?"

The orderly, despite being in freefall, managed to hang his head. "We... don't know."

"Oh, God... it's all my fault. It was my ship. The bomb was aboard my ship. My responsibility! All because I was desperate for an underpaid contract. All those people, they died because of me. I'm a fool. A greedy, mass-murdering fool." He grabbed the orderly by the front of his jumpsuit. "My fault! Mine! But it's okay, apparently, because I'm safe! I'm a hero for telling everyone they were about to die!"

An officer appeared in the hatchway to an office. "Dorden! Just what is going on?"

"Mr. Calvert, sir. He feels responsible for the station. He's hysterical-"

"Sedate him," the officer said, not unkindly. "We can organise a counsellor later. Survivor guilt is tricky, but it's possible to get past it."

"With respect, sir, I don't think this is just survivor guilt," Dorden struggled to get a hypodermic into Calvert's thrashing form.

"Well, we can let the therapist deal with that, can't we. Psychology never was one of my strong points. How is he physically?"

"Hardly a scratch," Dorden replied amid Josh's fading murmurs of "All my fault, all my fault, all my fault..."

Calvert lost consciousness.

* * *

"Colonel!" called a corporal. "See if you can get up here."

The Colonel took half a step forward before remembering the mines. He called a private up to walk ahead of him. The private looked mutinous at the duty. There was a sporadic staccato crack around him as the Marines continued to fire upon the terrorists in the apartment blocks. "Captain! Tell me you have those buildings sealed," ordered the Colonel as he passed the officer operating a vox set.

"Yes, sir. Nothing's getting out of them without our permission, sir."

The Colonel arrived at the corporal. "What is-"

He froze as he saw the man bound and on his knees before him. His face was mostly hidden by the darkness, but a black eye was just discernable in the flickering light from fires. "Director. How did you come to arrive here?"

"I was captured."

"The government quarter is three kilometres away."

"I was here, clearly."

The Colonel narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to order the corporal to release the Director, but was interrupted by the roar of an autocannon opening fire on the intersection. Marines burst apart, as did trees, cars and chunks of tarmac. The Colonel dived for cover behind the engine block of a delivery van. He could just make out a crazed cackle over the thunder of the cannon. He readied his pistol, thumbing the safety and checking the magazine.

As soon as the cannon stopped firing, he stood and drew a bead on the (giant, he saw) man carrying the autocannon. He fired, sending six shells thudding into the attacker's chestplate. The man took a step backward, giggled, then threw something small and round at the van.

It exploded with astonishing force. It flung the van rolling through the air, over the Colonel, to smack into a tree. He picked himself off the ground, and brushed himself off. "Return fire! Now! What are you waiting for?"

He looked around, and saw why no one was firing.

The terrorists had returned, and were each holding a marine by the neck, with the barrel of a rifle to every temple. Those that struggled were struck with rifle butts.

He readied a neural net message to the Marshall, up in orbit, but the giant man shot him before he could send it all.

* * *

"Ready?"

Trent and Naeva were crouched behind a corner, right next to the intersection. All around them were Marine corpses, most still behind cover, but with their throats slit from ear to ear. There were a few of the enemy among the dead, but not nearly enough to make the Argon loss worthwhile. Naeva nodded.

They'd managed to find Alkad again, as the lift had reached the ground. They could hear the chattering roar of his autocannon even from their position nearly a kilometre away. Now, they were about to confront him. For some reason Naeva couldn't quite figure out, Trent wanted to talk to him, rather than kill the hulking bastard out of hand.

"You sure we can't just top him?"

Trent looked at her. "Shall I let you try first? Don't be stupid, look at the size of him. His armour's about three centimetres thick. He'd snap either of us like a twig. Besides, he's with a bunch of them."

"Hm." They moved as quickly and as quietly as they could, closer to the intersection. From here they could see that the place was crawling with the terrorists, probably all of the survivors of the Marine assault.

Alkad half-turned, as if looking for something. Then he span on his heel and levelled his autocannon straight at the alcove Trent and Naeva were using to hide.

"Time to go." Trent horse-whispered, grabbing Naeva by the collar and yanking her upright. "Run!"

Alkad fired a burst down the street after them.

"Do you require assistance, Alkad?" the Director asked.

"No thanks, Mr D.," Alkad replied, waving the pair of terrorists that stepped forward back. "I'll get 'em myelf. Should be good fun, see." He giggled.

"Which way?" gasped Naeva as they slewed to a halt at another intersection. The streets were clear, the denizens of the city wisely staying behind locked doors.

Trent cast about. "That way. We can find a ship in the spaceport quarter."

They ran, with Alkad laughing madly in the distance behind them.

* * *

"I said, get me the source of that message now!" roared the Marshall aboard the _Argon One_, in low orbit over Argon Prime. The comms officer gulped, then explained again that the source was no longer transmitting.

The Marshall thumped the armrest of his chair in exasperation, then read the message again.

_Marshall, _

Some kind of setup. Enemy nearly invincible. Highest level of Argon government compromised. The Director&-e

/CORRUPTED FILETRANSIT  
/MESSAGE ENDS

The Marshall growled his displeasure at his helplessness.

"Sir! Outer picket fleets reporting incoming vessels. Unknown configuration. They're coming in fast."

For a moment the Marshall was torn between wanting to stay to find out what had happened to the Colonel, and needing to leave to help the scouts. His fleet won.

"Burn for orbit egress. Send a response fleet to relieve the scout pickets. All ships sound general quarters."

A low thunder rumbled through the deckplate, as the massive exhaust manifolds at the rear of the vessel flared into life. Officers and ratings strapped into their chairs, calling confirmations and orders across the bridge. Consoles were checked, primed, and locked down against outside interference. The large bulkhead hatches either end of the rear wall swung shut and locked, with a pneumatic hiss and a solid clunk. The communications section, the largest on the bridge, formed a hive of busy activity as they coordinated the massive fleet.

Lighter ships streaked past the _Argon One_, leaving bright plasma exhausts curving in exit vectors in front of the leviathan carrier.

After the arduous climb out of Argon Prime's gravity well, the fleet formed up and manouevred to face the foe. The quick response fleet of corvettes and heavy and medium fighters was just visible in the distance, shrinking dots of light screaming to help the scout picket. Sensors were still required to see the incoming enemy. Most of the ships were small; crystalline, pyramidal. No outward signs of sensors or weaponry - but if the reports were to be believed, the weapons were there in devastating quantities.

Behind the smaller ships, much larger ones lurked. These looked almost insectile, with sweeping arcs and bulbous sections hiding Terra only knew what behind plates of purple alloy.

"Sirs!" called the communications commander, Paxmann. "Response fleet reports enemy contact, heavy resistance. They... request immediate relief and support."

The Marshall grimaced. He had a fair idea of the language they were using to 'request' assistance. "Helm, maximum burn. Get us there five mizuras ago. Comms, order the fleet to send all heavy fighters and remaining corvettes ahead, to reinforce the response fleet. Order the capitol ships to arm all triple-A batteries and light fighter escorts to fly interdiction and interception."

"Maximum burn, aye."

"Fleet acknowledges, Marshall."

The heavy fighters and corvettes pulled ahead of the rest of the fleet, their engines flaring blue at the head of searing streaks of plasma exhaust.

* * *

"Green Two, jink! Come on, jink! JINK, damn you!"

"I _am_ jinking, sir! Bastard's got me cold!"

Two Discoverers dived after an invader diving after a Discoverer diving after a mid-class invader assisting a heavy-class invader attacking a corvette. The space for a kilometre in every direction was thick enough to walk on with plasma, exhaust, vented atmosphere and crisscrossing purple beams.

The lieutenant-commander in command of this corvette clasped a hand at the back of his neck from straining against the hellish manoeuvers his helmsman was pulling. "Comms! ETA for that relief!"

"Two mizuras, sir."

"Weapons! Sitrep."

"Hornet missile magazine exhausted. Mid-yield missiles at forty percent. Anti-strike craft and anti-missile munitions at twenty five percent. Energy weapon capacitors approaching operational limit; switching to secondaries in one decimal four mizuras. Shields hovering around sixty percent."

Managable, but not great. "Comms, how's the rest of the picket doing?"

"Not well. Almost all of the original scout fleet is gone, and the response fleet is going the same way. And when those capitol ships arrive..." he trailed off.

"Notify Fleet that we're pulling back, we'll meet the reinforcements partway. We can't survive out here much longer."

"Aye, sir."

"Helm, take us back towards Argon Prime. Push the reactors to the maximum safe margin."

"Coming about, engines answering one hundred fifty percent, aye. Coolant will require replacement in one point five mizuras."

One of the other corvettes came under heavy attack from sixteen alien vessels. They tore through the bridge, then the fusion toroids at the rear. The ship exploded, scattering debris in a wide arc.

"Comms, revised reinforcement ETA."

"One point one two mizuras, sir."

A volley of thick purple beams slashed at the rear shields, bringing the generators dangerously close to overload.

"Aft shields failing, sir. Activating auxiliary generators."

* * *

"Fleet advises we have incoming friendly, pursued by several enemies. Fire discretion is advised."

"Comms, tell them the cavalry's on its way. The capitol ships will be here soon, but in the meantime we're here to relieve them."

"Aye, sir." There was a pause while the comms officer relayed this. "Sir, they say they're one of the last ones left. There was only one other functional corvette when they left, and only barely. No mention of the fighter wings. They're coming in hot, it's going to take them a while to come about and rejoin the battle."

"Time to intercept?"

"Less than a mizura."

"Weapons, raise shields, power to forward generators. Warm the turrets, arm the missiles and lock the codes. Ops, clear non-essential compartments and decompress them. All hands, general quarters."

A chorus of 'Aye, aye's sounded through the bridge. The response fleet corvette became visible in the distance, a blue dot against the dark of space, at the centre of a web of purple lines.

"Forward plasma batteries running hot, sir. Missiles armed and cradled. Targets selected and loaded."

"Fire when in range, midshipman."

"Firing when in range, aye."

There was a few-sezura delay, then the lighter missiles shot out of their launch cradles and accelerated towards their targets at forty gees. Closer still, then the mid-yield missiles launched, accelerating at a slightly more sedate twenty-five gees.

"Comms, heavy fighter escort to engage targets at will."

The Novas gunned the throttles and pulled ahead, cold gas jets aligning them on better trajectories. Heat sinks glowed green as their plasma mounts warmed, ready to fire.

* * *

"Come on! Through here!"

Trent pulled on Naeva's sleeve and barged through a doorway. They found themselves in a bar, and one slightly the worse for wear at that.

"Over here, there's a back door." They trod lightly, but their feet crunched over broken glass and the remains of a table, and what appeared to be, by what Trent could see of it in the half-light, blood. The door was ajar and unlocked. Trent edged up to the frame, gave the door a gentle push and peered out. An alley, empty, save for a plume of steam from a commercial air conditioning unit. Refuse and rubbish lined the sides of the path, crammed against the wall.

A giggle in the dark. "Welcome to Sergeant Cova's favourite bar."

A dark mass barrelled into Trent's side. "Get down, you fool!" shouted Naeva from around his midsection, as they landed heavily on the floor. Trent never even felt the impact, because Alkad chose that moment to open fire. A torrent of explosive shells tore the tables apart, ripped holes in the wall and reduced the door and its frame to a cloud of shrapnel-filled dust.

Alkad was cackling at the main door. "I didn't hurt you, did I? You're really being far too interesting at the moment. I don't want to hurt you..." He sobered. "Are you there?"

Silence.

"Hello? Trent? Miss?" He took a tentative step forward.

* * *

"Sir," called Clarke. "There's a break in the thunderhead, I can see the city."

"Find me the tender. Now!" Duvall ordered.

"I have it, sir. It's heavily damaged, there are holes all over the port side. No signs of life. No corpses anywhere near, either."

"Sir!" called Dexter. "I'm still picking up Trent and Alkad's locators. They're still alive, and close to each other, but I can't get any better than that, the storm's too thick. I don't have Dret's signal." He looked around, back at the captain. Duvall's face betrayed no emotion.

"Are we still being ordered to support the fleet?"

"Yes, sir. They're starting to threaten legal and military action if we do not respond or obey."

"What are they going to do now? Leave us to them?" He sighed. "We'll wait for Trent. We'll need him back for this. See if you can get hold of the rest of the MTyrell fleet. Get them here to reinforce the Argon defense force."

"Aye, sir."

"Clarke, show me the fleets."

The gravidar display dissolved into an image depicting small, smooth blue icons representing the Argon carriers, destroyers, corvettes and strike craft; and angular, bright purple icons for the enemy. They were edging closer, but still a way apart yet.

Apart from a group of small and medium displacement ships in the middle of the two advancing groups. A knot of blue icons were besieged and surrounded by a host of smaller purple ones. Sanitised scrolling data readouts next to the icons told of estimated damage, percentage effectiveness and energy output, along with speed and trajectory. A blue icon winked out of existence, to be followed into oblivion by two small purple ones.

* * *

"Take _that_, you murdering alien bastards!"

"Clear the comm, Green Three. Green One, Fleet. Where are you? We're running out of ships, sirs."

"Fleet, Green One. Main body of the fleet is less than a mizura away. Hold the area down until we get there. Out."

Green One gunned her throttles, and armed the last of her missiles. She corkscrewed around, and pummelled the flank shields of an enemy with her plasma cannon before launching a missile to finish it. She dove through the explosion, and looked to her right at a slapping sound. An anonymous chunk of charred flesh bounced off the cockpit window, leaving a sickly purple smear. She grimaced, then rotated targets.

There were just so many!

* * *

The Marshall watched from his command chair on the _Argon One_. "Ops, scramble the remaining pilots on all vessels. Get every fighter we have in the black. Weapons, alert the gunners. They are to open fire on any target of opportunity. Helm, Communications, Fleet to fly combat pattern Delta."

"Pilots scrambling, aye."

"Turrets firing at will, aye."

"Combat pattern Delta locked, aye."

"All hands, your attention please," the Marshall unbuckled himself from his acceleration harness and stood, his feet looped through grab hoops on the deck. The bridge crew turned to look back at him, faces sombre, but determined.

"Good hunting."


	23. Chapter 22

Castro clambered over the gantries to reach her fighter, answering the scramble on the _Argon One._ The docking bay, like the rest of the ship, was normally under null-g, but the carrier was still accelerating towards the foe, meaning the journey to her ship was much more arduous than usual. While the bay was usually merely cavernous, it was now cavernous _and_ something that needed to be climbed, under two gees.

She'd been forced on leave after she brought that independent captain back to the Department. They'd paid her off nicely, to make sure she didn't tell anyone about the purple alien vessels. She smiled mirthlessly. Now everyone knew.

Her leave had been boring, at first. So she got roaring drunk. Three victorious bar brawls later, they agreed to let her back on active duty. She'd been shipped straight up to the _Argon One._

Her status as an ace pilot meant she was assigned to one of the elite squadrons based aboard the carrier, and as such she was expected to name and brand her fighter. _Mjolnir _was her chosen vessel's name, and it carried a stylised thunderhammer motif. She recalled the story from a Goner she'd met on a recreational visit to their temple, about an old thunder god and his mighty hammer. It appealed to her violent streak.

The other members of her squadron had various designs and paintjobs, such as snarling, teeth-filled mouths on the prows and streaks of blue warpaint. Desite having so many brilliantly skilled people in one area, there were very few disagreements between the pilots - they were all career military, and utterly professional.

She climbed into the cockpit of her Nova, and started the fire-up sequence. She heard the hum of the fusion toroid, then the whine of charging weapon capacitors. Her gunner, MacKinnan, reported that he was strapped in and ready to go. He'd already finished checking his weapons. As the canopy closed, the blaring of the alarm klaxons reduced to a dull keening call in the background.

"Engine initiation: completed. Primary power systems: online. Secondary power systems: online. Auxiliary power supply: ready. Weapons: on standby. Shields: online," said the toneless voice of the computer. Castro continued flipping switches and punching arming codes, then cinched her harness tighter.

"MacKinnan, are you ready?"

"Sure thing, boss. Just waiting on you, now."

Castro had long since stopped trying to get him to render honourifics when talking to her on duty. It wasn't worth the effort.

She eased her fighter out of its docking sleeve, then manoeuvered into the launch rail. Magnetic clamps adhered to the dorsal and ventral hull, then assisted the launch boost as Castro hit the afterburners. Running lights flashed past the cockpit, finally accelerating to a fast blur as the gunship shot out of the launch tube.

The other ships in her squadron, as well as dozens of others from both the _Argon One _and the other carriers in the defense fleet, joined her. Eager pilots barrelled and looped and buzzed each other, then formed up and straightened out when they were admonished by Fleet.

The alien vessels were close enough that individual ships could be picked out. They were swarming a Navy corvette, pumping shot after pounding shot into its failing shields. The corvette was giving as good as it got, hurling plasma bolts and its few remaining missiles at its enemies. The ship, its afterdecks on fire, exhaust manifolds flaring blue under maximum acceleration, shields flashing silver, hurtled towards the rest of the fleet.

A crash of static hissed over the fleetwide band. "_Panther_, Fleet! _Panther_, Fleet! Get these bastards off me! We're-" another crash of static. "-d here! Damnit, help us!"

"Castro, Fleet. Permission to engage."

"Fleet, Castro. Permission granted. Give them hell."

* * *

"Are you there? Naeva? Ed?"

He was answered by the flashes of a laser pistol. The beams struck his chest plate, and ignited the fabric covering the armour. Alkad swiped at it, trying to put it out. With his free hand, he unhooked a compact carbine from a hip holster and returned fire, but the shadow had already ducked behind an overturned table.

"Oh, good," giggled the massive mercenary. "You had me worried there, Trent."

"Oh, I see!" shouted Naeva. "Someone who knows how to use a gun _must_ be a man! Here, let me prove you further wrong!" She stuck the pistol over the edge of the table and blind fired at Alkad. He was close enough and big enough that she couldn't really miss. A shot creased his thigh just above the knee, and he fell with a grunt.

Naeva slapped Trent, trying to wake him. He stirred and groaned, and his eyelids fluttered, but didn't fully awaken. Sighing with exasperation, she hooked his arm over her shoulder and heaved, dragging him upright. She staggered towards the door, grasping the arm Trent had round her neck by the wrist to stop him falling again.

Alkad sat upright, but threw himself flat again when Naeva sent a trio of shots stinging into the dark.

Across the threshold, she elbowed Trent in the ribs and slapped him again. "Wake up, you miserable, stupid..." words failed her, so she made an inarticulate noise of frustration instead. A fair way down the alleyway, she let go, and Trent flopped face-first into a puddle.

He started, spluttering. "Urgh... Naeva?"

"Right here, feth-head," she groused.

"What? Are you okay?"

"Fine, fine." She laughed. "I thought you were a gentleman._You're_ meant to be saving _me._ Instead, the lady has to do all the work and save your sorry arse!" She moved over to him, and offered her hand. "Now, get up. I think I hurt Alkad, but he's still after us. Spaceport quarter's this way."

"Thanks. Uh... sorry about that." He blushed again.

"Oh, shush. My fault for decking you in the first place, I suppose."

They heard a furious yell in the distance. "_TRENT! NAEVA! I'M COMING FOR YOU! ENOUGH GAMES. YOU ARE GOING TO DIE._"

Alkad's mad cackle chased them down the alley.

* * *

Cova arched his back, stretching, then stood.

"Where are you going?"

"Away. You've fixed me up, and I'm grateful, but there's work needs doing." He flexed his new bionic bicep. The electromuscle was fusing nicely to the humerus and his radius; he already had his original strength back in it, and over the next two days that strength would be tripled.

Ignoring the protests of the corpsman, Cova strolled out of the aid station. The main barracks on the capitol planet was a hive of activity as more civilian evacuees were flown in then redistributed between the aid station and another runway, to take them to other cities around the globe.

Marine casualties had stopped coming in. So had reports from the capitol.

Cova casually accessed a nearby terminal, and requested information about the battle.

_Confirmed enemy casualties: 5. _

_Confirmed friendly casualties: 227. _

_Estimated civilian casualties: 1080._

_Next Query?_

Cova typed in a few commands, requesting a comm-link with someone on the front.

_All remaining units MIA._

_:Confirm._

_All remaining units MIA. _

"Oh," Cova breathed, "feth."

He had a very bad feeling about the next few quazuras. He glanced up.

The spaceport. He would get his ship, and get the hell out of here.

* * *

"MacKinnan, ready on the guns. As soon as we overshoot, hit them. Brace for combat manoeuvers," Castro sent via her neural net.

"You got it," came the reply

She was approaching the stricken corvette at a relative velocity of a fat fraction of lightspeed, now. They were both under combat acceleration; eight gees in her case, ten for the corvette, being the more desperate of the two. They were prow-to-prow, hurtling towards each other.

Castro let a salvo of missiles slide out of their launch cradles, screaming away at twenty gees. She pulled up slightly to avoid actually hitting the _Panther_, and nailed a fighter with a hail of plasma as it passed in front of her. The corvette flashed by, its image blueshifted by their enormous combined speeds.

"MacKinnan!"

"I got them!"

Castro checked the rear cockpit camera. Her gunner was tracking, locking, and firing at targets faster than her eyes could follow. She had to admit, he was good.

For a gun-junkie.

She corkscrewed, pulled round and hit the afterburners to cancel her forward inertia. Her harness straps bit savagely under the new acceleration. A medium-class fighter presented a target, then disappeared in a green, purple and blue flash as she unleashed a burst from her plasma connon at it. A salvo of light missiles shot away and harrassed half a dozen enemies.

A light enemy appeared on her tail. It fired again and again into her aft shields.

"MacKinnan!"

"Evade! Evade! I can't track, it's too damn fast!"

Castro slapped the afterburners, barrelled through a hundred degrees and pulled back on the yoke. When the fighter came into her forward arc she launched three interceptor missiles in a wide dispersal. Two struck, and the last turned sharply and sped away as it found an easier target. The alien ship corkscrewed round and impacted another, blowing both into oblivion.

Her brief respite allowed her to watch the battle for a few sezuras. Plasma exhausts from fighters and corvettes crossed chemical contrails from missiles, alternately blue, yellow, purple and green in the mad maelstrom of weapons fire and consequence. Heavy and medium Argon fighters looped and barrelled and corkscrewed and fired constantly, around the more sluggish corvettes, chasing the curling, looping enemy.

Her collision alarm bleeped shrilly. A new cluster had enteted the fray. How had she managed not to notice it?

She was about to burn for a flanking manoeuvre to get behind it before it broke, when searing, thick bolts of blue-white photons slammed into the formation, obliterating it.

"All units, Fleet. All units, Fleet. Navy capitol ships have arrived. Medium fighters to interdiction duty."

Whoops and cheers sounded over the comm.

A corvette called frantically. "Fleet! Be advised, heavies inb-"

An orange beam with the brightness of a solar flare slammed into its starboard flank as it tried to turn, and sheared the ship in two. The aft section exploded, taking the forward one with it.

The enemy capitol vessels had joined the fight.

* * *

"Clarke, tell me the Fleet's winning."

"They seem matched so far, Captain. The enemy capitols are... powerful."

The tac-screen hovering over the gravidar display showed sanitised icons depicting Argon vessels and alien ones. Both sides had already suffered horrendous casualty rates of around twenty percent.

"Dexter, any word from Trent yet? Alkad?"

"No, sir. I'm still getting interference from this damned storm."

"Keep trying."

"Aye, sir."

The _Myrmidon_ was now in a geostationary orbit over the city, but even its powerful communications suite was defeated by the massive power of Argon Primes's harsh weather system.

"Ops, report."

"All systems functional. Almost all the weapons mounts are operational now, apart from the two cannon we're waiting for from that trader. Missile magazine at sixty percent. Shields fully operational."

"Duvall, Ducheval."

"Ducheval, Duvall. Go ahead, sir."

"How's the integration of the new exhaust pods going?"

"Completed, sir. They're running smooth as a dream. Fair bit more efficient than the last set, too. They're okay, I suppose..."

Duvall smiled, far away on the bridge. Ducheval had at first been adamant that nothing was going to touch his beloved engines, so saying the new ones weren't all bad was high praise indeed.

Now all he needed was his exec and troop commander back, and he'd be set to help the Fleet.

"Comms, is the Fleet still signalling us?"

"No, sir. They're probably concentrating on the fight right now."

* * *

Ahead, in the darkness and rain, a massive oblong shape reared.

"There! A hangar!" Trent pointed. "Come on."

Tracer fire whickered into the ground around them. "Oh, but stay! You wouldn't cheat me of my sport, now, would you?" Alkad roared behind them.

"Feth!" Trent had thought them home free, with the spaceport so near. He readied his sidearm as he pushed Naeva down behind a dropped crate on the concourse. Peering over the lip of the crate, he could just make out a hulking silhouette in the downpour, walking with a slight limp.

Taking careful aim, he squeezed the trigger. A bright beam, backscattering green off the raindrops, struck Alkad in the chestplate. Another winged his shoulder. The third time he squeezed, the LEDs died and the gun became cool in his palm.

Empty.

He hadn't brought any spare power cells for it, either.

Cursing, he ducked back down behind the crate with Naeva, as more shells whistled around his head.

* * *

Cova had made excellent time. He'd obtained a government vehicle from the barracks, and had sped across the city limits towards the spaceport. The storm raged outside the car, but Cova remained warm and dry inside.

Now, pulling into the outer reaches of the sprawling port, he could make out a louder hammering above the sound of the rain on the roof. Gunfire. Something, large, heavy, and with a hefty cyclic fire rate.

An autocannon, perhaps.

"The Big Bastard himself, I wonder?" Cova mused to himself. He still hadn't forgotten the way Alkad had seemingly disregarded Cova's safety when he fired on Parker in the trading dock. Personally, he was in no rush to repeat the experience. But Alkad probably needed help, if he was firing on more terrorists.

Saying that, how was Alkad down here in the first place? Last Cova knew, he left him up on the _Myrmidon_, in charge of the mercenary compliment on the massive destroyer.

He'd go ask.

Pulling up, he shut down the engine and opened the door. Climbing out, he was almost instantly soaked by the rain. He pulled his pistol from its holster, and flicked the safety. It warmed in his palm and he could make out a rising whine over the rain as the power cell charged.

He hurried through the nearest terminal, and gained temporary shelter from the storm. The place was deserted and dark.

"What the hell?" Cova muttered. The spaceport was always open, always running. It was the lifeblood of the capitol, it _couldn't_ be closed.

Walking through a door marked 'Staff Only,' he kept moving towards the back of the terminal, where the warehouses and majority of the hangars were located. He could hear the gun more clearly now, along with the odd hint of laughter over the muted roar.

Finally breaking out into the rain again, Cova followed the sounds of firing. He walked around a corner, then threw himself back as stray tracer rounds ripped through the rain past him.

He peeked quickly round the corner, then ran at crouch to cover behind a crate on its side on the concourse. Looking over the top of the box, he could see two figures huddling down behind another crate. They couldn't be terrorists, they didn't bother huddling. They just shot you.

Keeping low, Cova crouch-ran and thudded into the crate beside the two figures. Immediately one of them grabbed the front of his uniform and slammed him onto the floor, still behind the crate. Someone straddled him, pinning him to the floor.

"Who-" a familiar voice started. "Cova?"

"Trent? Well, that's a fine 'How do you do,' and no mistake."

"Sorry about that." Trent looked over his shoulder, "Naeva, meet Cova."

Cova nodded and knuckled his forehead. "It's a pleasure, ma'am."

"Likewise. Um, Trent? Aren't you forgetting something?"

As if to emphasise her point, more tracer fire whickered into the ground to either side of the crate.

"Ah yes. You remember Alkad, Cova?"

"Hard to forget him," he replied, remembering again the situation in the trading dock.

Trent gave him a meaningful look.

"Oh... Alkad's definitely the one trying to gun you down?"

"Yeah. We kinda need to get back into orbit. Thirty mizuras ago."

"Aren't you shooting back?"

"No ammo left."

Cova sighed. "This means I have to do something stupidly brave-"

"-Or bravely stupid," Naeva interjected helpfully. Cova looked at her. "Sorry," she said.

"-Something stupid to draw him off, doesn't it."

"Well, yes," Trent replied. "You can come with us, after we find a ship."

"Why, thank you. Right then," Cova said heavily. "I'll just be off. See you in a few."

Cova gave a bright smile, just visible in the murky conditions, and a thumbs-up. Trent and Naeva nodded encouragingly. He wished he felt as enthusiastic as he looked.

He ran back to his original crate, then snuck round the back of a grounded transport. He circled round from cover to cover, until he was effectively behind Alkad. He checked his magazine, clicked off the safety and hefted his pistol.

He crept forward, light footsteps smothered by the sound of the rain. He stopped five metres behind Alkad, and raised his pistol to aim at Alkad's head.

"Alkad!"

The mercenary spun, and smiled at the sight of Cova's pistol. He hefted his autocannon, and giggled.

"Do you want to get into a slugging match with me, Police Man?"

"Why are you attacking Trent? You work for him!" Cova could just make out two silhouettes dash off to his right, behind Alkad.

"With respect, no I don't. I work for a higher authority. Sure, the pay's good. But my family are worth more to me than twenty thousand credits a mazura. Mr D can help me find them, he says."

"Who's Mr D?"

"The Director. Didn't you know?"

Cova had never heard of any Director. He guessed Alkad didn't mean filmmakers, either. He changed the subject. "So, this Director ordered you to kill Trent?"

"More or less, yes." Alkad chuckled.

"Why?"

"Who cares?" Alkad racked the bolt on the autocannon, and hefted it again. Cova was faster. He squeezed his trigger, and a bullet shot out of the barrel of his pistol and scored a deep graze along the side of Alkad's skull, taking the top of his earlobe off. He spun and dropped like a stone, blood rushing out the head wound.

"Cova, you bastard. You're going to join Trent and Naeva for that one..."

Cova didn't stick around to find out if Alkad intended on following through with his threat. He set off in the direction Trent and Naeva had disappeared in.

* * *

Castro barrelled, narrowly avoiding pancaking on the hull of an enemy destroyer.

"Hey, boss. Could you get any closer? I wanna see if I can get a souvenir..."

"MacKinnan."

"Boss?"

"Shut up."

Castro pulled up sharply to avoid ripping her hull open on a wicked-looking spiked turret mount, then had to swerve away to miss the stream of photon cannon shells pounding the insectoid destroyer. She heard the whine of MacKinnan's plasma capacitor as he unloaded a few token shots into the massive shields of the foe.

She launched a missile at a heavy enemy fighter persecuting a friendly corvette. The explosion knocked it off course, but its shields held. The corvette used the brief reprieve to get the fighter back in its firing arcs, and turned its hull to slag with a deluge of plasma.

"Thanks for the assist, Elite Two," the corvette commed. The ID tag showed it to be the weapons officer.

"No problem, _Pegasus_. Nail a few more for me."

The Argon Navy destroyers and carriers were laying down a formidable display of pattern fire, showing extreme discipline, training and organisation. The disproportionately large communications staff aboard the _Argon One_ were coordinating the attack, prioritising targets and designating fighter swarms for the lighter escorts to tackle. The Marshall could barely be heard over the hubbub on the bridge, issuing orders.

The enemy destroyer-class vessels, of roughly equal number to their Argon counterparts, were showing a similar coordination, but rather than focussing their firepower on one or two ships at a time, made sure the all Argon capitols were under fire from at least one enemy at all times. Thick, blindingly bright orange beams speared into the shields of the Navy ships, trying to find a weakspot to exploit.

Castro looked around in her cockpit, trying to take in as much of the furball as possible. The situation was a total mess - friendly ships trying to coordinate with one another, looping and curving round in attack and evasion vectors, enemy ones swarming and chasing. She'd even lost track of the rest of her squadron, if there were still enouogh of them left to be called a squadron. Making a rough estimate, she decided that there was no ship further than a hundred metres from another. It was probably only a matter of time until there was an unintended collision.

She corkscrewed around, and harrassed the back of yet another cluster as it arrived in the melee. They were going to need help soon or the enemy was simply going to roll them under weight of numbers.


	24. Chapter 23

Cova cast about himself. Where were they? They went into this hangar, he was sure of it. Empty shuttle, empty escort, empty shuttle, another empty shuttle, empty-

"Psst! Cova!"

He spun, spying Naeva hanging out the side of a TP. "Over here." Cova did as suggested, and saw her a little clearer in the gloom for being close. "You made it, then?"

"No, I died. I'm just a ghost, and-"

"Oh, shut up; Trent's getting the ship prepped. Come in, we'll-"

"NAEVA." Alkad's voice boomed in the hangar, over the drumming of the rain on the roof and the bass rolling of thunder.

Naeva stared at Cova. "You didn't kill him?"

"Apparently not," he replied, dripping with sarcasm. "Seriously, you try killing him... Move, let me in. Or we're both dead."

She disappeared into the hatch, and Cova hurriedly stepped through and cycled the airlock. "Trent! Get the shields up."

"I'm working on it," came the muffled reply from the cockpit.

"TRENT." Cova started. Alkad's voice was astonishingly loud in this insulated space. In fact, he was surprised he could hear it at all. He turned to look at the door, the little viewport set into the metal at eye-height. Alkad's face glared angrily back. "COVA."

"Trent, shields...!" Cova warned.

"THAT. IS THE ORDER. IN WHICH. YOU ARE GOING. TO DIE."

"Got it!" There was a brief crackle of static electricity as the energy barrier ionised the wet air, and Alkad took half a step backward as the field pushed him away from the vessel. Cova jogged up to the flight deck. "Now would be a good time to leave," he recommended.

There was a thud that reverberated through the hull. "What was that?" Naeva asked, a frown of confusion on her face.

--

The turret warmed, glowing orange, yellow, white, and finally searing blue as Castro dove towards it. _Not good. Not good. Not good not good not good._ She pirouhetted aside as it fired, and watched the energy bolt slam into an enemy destroyer, pounding its shields.

Her shield monitors blared as she took a hit from a trio of fighters. "Warning: shields at ten percent."

"Oh, feth off... MacKinnan!"

"On it, Boss."

She barrelled to port, dropped a few of her dwindling supply of missiles and corkscrewed to draw a bead on the foe on the left. MacKinnan nailed the right one as it overshot them. The missiles struck the middle one, atomising it.

"Fleet, Elite Two," she called. "Status on friendly fighter forces?"

There was a long pause. Castro was on the verge of repeating her request when her comm crackled into life. "Elite Two, Fleet. Interceptor squadrons at roughly 75, interdictor squadrons at roughly 60, gunship squadrons at fewer than 40."

"Possibility of refuel, rearm and recharge?"

"Negative, Elite Two. You stay in the black. Fleet, out."

Well, that was just fantastic. She cried out in surprise as a thick orange beam sliced past her ship, causing spots to explode across her vision. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear it. "Stupid, purple, fething fethers..." She regained her full powers of vision in time to see the tail end of the beam impact an Argon destroyer, finally overloading its port shields and gouging into the port forward quarter of the ship. It began to list.

"Mayday, mayday! _ANS Tryphon_ suffering massive damage! Fires uncontrollable... Secondary explosions nearing the main missile magazine. Fleet, we need to pull out, and we need support."

Castro overheard no reply.

"Fleet!"

--

"Dexter, where the merry hell is that trader?"

"Not a clue, sir. He hasn't been responding to my hails. He could be anywhere in the Universe."

"Weapons," Duvall looked across to the other side of the bridge. "Are the supplies we requested absolutely essential?"

"If you're asking if we can do without them, sir, then yes, I believe we can. Most of the gun batteries are at full strength, and the missile magazine is well enough stocked to last a good quazura or so's sustained fire."

"Fine. Clarke, status on the battle, then the storm planetside."

"The _Tryphon_ has suffered a critical hit and is attempting to withdraw. I can't give you a reasonable estimate on the fightercraft battle, I don't have the resolution at this range. All the enemy capital craft are still active, though. Reading some fluctuations in the shield matrices of a couple of the ships, they could be on the point of collapse. I'm not sure."

"And the storm?"

"Abating - but still too thick to see or hear through. I'll keep you informed."

"Please do," Duvall shifted in his chair, uncomfortable. He wasn't used to being out of contact with his exec. Trent had been a friend and ally for a very long time - Duvall had signed him on barely a wozura after the man had achieved the rank of 'commander' on an independent TL. The transition from that to a military vessel hadn't been too difficult.

Although, Duvall had had his suspicions about Trent - and the rest of the crew, to some degree - since he'd got back from the Department's holding cell. There was just something... strange about them. He'd figure it out later.

In the meantime, he'd keep an eye on them, and wait for Trent.

--

The ship rumbled, then steadied to a background hum as the main plasma toroid warmed. There was a brief shudder as the main engines ignited.

"Got it!" Trent punched the air as the panel in front of him illuminated fully. "Okay... out of the hangar now..."

The TP edged forward, towards the open hangar doors. Alkad was nowhere to be seen. As the nose of the ship entered the outside storm, the cockpit windows were immediately drenched and blurred by the heavy rain. An alarm klaxon rang through the cockpit.

"Ship under attack."

"It's Alkad... that damn autocannon. The shields are taking it."

The transport hummed forward, its main engines ticking over, to the launch pad. Alkad pounded the shields all the way, heedless of the rain, and the lightning grounding through the buildings and conductor rods around him. He roared in fury, screaming at the shuttle to come back.

It lifted slowly, almost nonchalantly, as if it were ignoring him deliberately, then the main engines ignitied and it boosted into orbit. As the shuttle cleared the cloud cover, their sensors regained their proper resolution.

"By the High Towers of Terra... I think we'd be better off downstairs," Naeva said.

"What is it?" Trent asked, concentrating on his instruments.

"Look up, you numbnut."

He looked up.

He looked back at his console.

He double-took, and looked back ahead of the ship. There was a brilliant cloud of light in the far distance, far outside Argon Prime's orbit around its parent star. "Is that what I think it is?"

"The Argon Navy is engaging those purple ships you told me so much about. And some big ones you didn't."

"Feth. Naeva, find the _Myrmidon_. We need to get over there."

"Got it. But there's some kind of power surge in this shuttle... I don't know what's causing it."

The consoles in the cockpit flickered and sparked, then died. The engines sputtered and failed, quiet descending over the vessel as its generators whined down. Even the polarising filters over the cockpit viewport crystal ceased to function. The three squinted in the suddenly harsh light from the star and the battle in the distance.

Naeva poked and prodded at her console. "I still have sensors, for some reason... the _Myrmidon_ has seen us and is changing course to intercept. Whoa... there's a _massive_ ship... huge energy spike... what-"

Naeva chose a very bad time to look up. Trent was still looking down, trying to get the ship to start working again, and Cova had gone back aft to see what he could do manually. At that moment, the huge new ship fired an orange beam as thick as the shuttle and brighter than the system's sun. The light, unfiltered by the cockpit windows, seared her retinas, blinding her. She screamed and covered her eyes, thrashing around in her seat.

"I can't see! _I can't see! I CAN'T SEE!"_

Trent blinked, clearning the lines across his vision. "Naeva! Naeva, it's okay... it's okay, I'm right here. We're gonna get you to the _Myrmidon_ and they're gonna fix it, it's gonna be okay..."

It wasn't. The beam had struck one of Argon Prime's moons. The uneven, massive heating had shattered the crust, melted the mantle, and forced the core to explode. The moon broke up into several million fragments, all on a decaying orbit. They would strike the planet over a period of a wozura, two or three tazuras from now.

--

"One mizura twenty to intercept, sir."

"Clarke, what happened?"

"Minor EMP pulse ran through the shuttle. The sensor suite survived due to the fact that it has to filter EM noise all the time, but the rest of the ship is without power."

"No," Duvall sighed. "The giant orange beam."

"Right, sorry, sir. It hit the innermost moon, which subsequently shattered. There is no immediate danger to the planet, only the smallest fragments were pushed in the direction of it, they'll burn up on re-entry; the rest is still in orbit. But they won't stay there, they're curving down towards the planet. Two tazuras, four at the outside, before it's rendered uninhabitable."

Duvall absorbed this for a while.

"Sir," called the Ops man. "TP on final approach. Our computers are guiding it in, its astrogation processors are shot."

--

Trent slapped the airlock controls. "Medical assistance! There's a casualty in the shuttle! _Now!_"

"Aye, sir."

A guerney escorted by two medicos appeared from the nearest aid station, and dashed over to the shuttle.

"Cova," Trent called, "you're coming with me. The captain will need to know what Alkad has done. Goodness only knows what the mercenaries will do now..."

"Sure. You don't want me to go with Naeva, make sure she's alright?"

Naeva, strapped to the stretcher and screaming, was ferried past by the paramedics. "No," he replied. "She's in good enough hands."

"Sir," one of the medics shouted from across the docking hall. "We'll keep her in the aid station here, it's well enough equipped."

Trent nodded and led the way to the nearest pellerator. Inside, he motioned Cova to a seat. "Bridge."

As the capsule moved off, Cova leaned forward. "Why do you need me there, to talk to the captain?"

"I'm not convinced he trusts me. Ever since he was incarcerated by the Department-"

"The who?"

"Under the Director-"

"Alkad mentioned him."

"What?"

"The Director. He said he knew where his family was. So he was working for Duvall while it was convenient, but the Director overrode any authority Duvall had over him."

"This is why I needed you there," Trent said with a wry smile.

The computer's voice sounded over the cabin speakers. "Bridge."

They stepped out, behind a blast door leading to the bridge proper. Trent keyed the actuator code, and the doors hissed apart. "Commander Trent, reporting for duty, sir."

"Good to see you back. What took you so long? And where is Alkad?" Duvall asked from his seat.

"Those two answers are related, sir. Alkad is no longer part of this crew. He killed his second when we landed, and then tried to kill Naeva and myself. He works for the Director. The capital has been taken over by terrorists; they wiped out an entire battalion of the Marines."

"That's it in a nutshell?"

"Yes, sir. Naeva is currently in one of the aft aid stations, she was blinded by the beam that destroyed the moon."

"Helmsman, bring me that battle with all possible haste. All hands, general quarters. Raise shields and charge weapons. Full combat readiness; evacuate and decompress all unessential compartments."

A ragged chorus of 'Aye, sir,'s was followed by blips and confirmatory tones from the various consoles on the bridge.

"Trent," Duvall said quietly, leaning over towards his exec, "What really happened down there? Alkad's crazy, sure, but he wouldn't turn like that. He was too well paid."

"The Director knows where his family is, apparently."

"He told me when he signed on that his family were killed in the Xenon war."

"I don't know, sir. Only what I've been told."

"By him?" Duvall jerked his head towards Cova, who was holding onto a grabhoop set into the bulkhead and looking out of place. "A planethugger policeman?"

"He helped saved my life, sir. I'm inclined to trust him."

"Hm." Duvall straightened, but didn't look convinced. "Helm, how long until battle insertion?"

"Half a quazura or so, sir. The overall drift of the engagement is taking it further towards the edge of the system."

"Plot a parabola upwards relative to the ecliptic. I want to be able to dive through the enemy formation, see if we can't scatter them for the Navy boys."

There was a brief pause. "Parabolic curve plotted, aye."

"Weapons, order all gunnery crews to perform final checks and drills."

"Gunnery acknowledges."

"Helm," Duvall said, looping his feet through graphoops in the deck and standing, "Engage."

--

"Shields, failing."

"MacKinnan!" Castro screamed. "Get these motherfething hullhumping purple bastards off me _now!_"

"I'm workin' on it, Boss! Just-"

A blast rocked the fighter's stern, sending it into a messy spin.

"Shields, offline."

"MacKinnan."

"Engines, offline."

"MacKinnan?"

"Secondary plasma torus, offline."

"MacKinnan, are you there?"

"Weapons control, offline."

"MacKinnan goddamnit, answer me!"

"Life support, failing."

"Damnit... Fleet, Castro. I need retrieval."

"Main power, failing."

"Fleet?"

"Communications suite, offline."


End file.
